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They are starving, they are often injured<br />

they freeze to death in winter<br />

and they need help.<br />

Volume XLIV, <strong>Issue</strong> 9 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018<br />

- See page 10<br />

Human trafficking<br />

rising in Durham<br />

page 9<br />

Photograph by Shanelle Somers<br />

Music Week<br />

takes over Oshawa<br />

page 23<br />

Photograph by Michael Bromby<br />

'Privilege'<br />

controversy<br />

page 3<br />

<strong>Chronicle</strong> alum<br />

talks success<br />

page 15<br />

Photograph by Tracy Wright<br />

Photograph by Heather Snowdon<br />

See Land Where We Stand stories, <strong>pages</strong> 17-22<br />

Illistration by William McGinn


2 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus<br />

BACK<br />

of the<br />

FRONT<br />

DC journalism students look at Durham College and UOIT,<br />

and beyond, by the numbers and with their cameras<br />

Photograph by Alex Clelland<br />

DC students celebrate women<br />

Women from the Office of Student Diversity, Inclusion and Transitions make International Women's Day<br />

come alive on campus.<br />

Hard to handle<br />

Photograph by Shana Fillatrau<br />

\<br />

Key shot<br />

Photograph by Angela Lav<strong>all</strong>ee<br />

Students were so excited for class they pulled off the handle near the Media,<br />

Art, and Design office.<br />

Advanced film students try their camera techniques in The Pit on Wednesday,<br />

Mar. 7, 2018.


Campus chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 3<br />

Meet DCSI's new president<br />

John Cook,<br />

Cassidy McMullen<br />

and Conner McTague<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

DC Student Inc.’s (DCSI) new<br />

president is Jaylan Hayles.<br />

Hayles defeated Naqi Hyder,<br />

Brad Short and Gurpreet Singh<br />

for the president’s job when results<br />

were announced March 8. Official<br />

results were not released (as of<br />

production of the <strong>Chronicle</strong>) but<br />

approximately 1,900 votes were<br />

cast, much higher than expected,<br />

says DCSI general manager, Jennifer<br />

McHugh.<br />

Hayles is a student in the fire<br />

and life safety system technician<br />

program and is also a graduate<br />

from DC’s business marketing and<br />

pre-service firefighting programs.<br />

“I felt amazing, like <strong>all</strong> the hard<br />

work we put in and how to see<br />

everything pay off…it was overwhelming,”<br />

Hayles says. “Now<br />

I feel it’s ‘go’ time. I got to make<br />

sure the school is ready to go.”<br />

Hayles’ campaign slogan was:<br />

“I am a man of the people, not<br />

above the equal.”<br />

His campaign focused on<br />

“money, excitement and bring<br />

back (the) student experience.” He<br />

says he wants to “heighten student<br />

experience” by adding more<br />

events, creating more job opportunities<br />

for students and improving<br />

mental health services.<br />

Toosaa Bush, a graphic design<br />

student, is the new Vice-President<br />

(VP) of Internal Affairs and Geoffrey<br />

Olara, a fire and life safety<br />

system technician student, is VP<br />

of External Affairs.<br />

Hayles, Bush and Olara ran as<br />

an unofficial combined ticket.<br />

“To be able to work with Geoffrey<br />

and Toosaa and we also have<br />

great executives… it’s going to<br />

be a mind blowing year,” Hayles<br />

says.<br />

DC Student Inc.'s new president Jaylan Hayles.<br />

Adds Bush:“We could definitely<br />

collaborate a lot more to bring<br />

the school much better and give<br />

more entertainment to the school<br />

but also up lift the student experience.”<br />

The first issue the new DCSI<br />

wants to face when they enter office<br />

is DC social life.<br />

“Trying to bring more social<br />

events to the school, some more<br />

social awareness,” Bush says. “We<br />

as students want to be sociable but<br />

we don’t re<strong>all</strong>y have anything to,<br />

like, bring us together to socialize.”<br />

Adds Hayles: “We need to execute,<br />

we’re there for one year, we<br />

got to make sure things are going<br />

and there happening.”<br />

Bush also wants to have students<br />

participate in the operation<br />

of the school as well.<br />

Not only does it give them<br />

experience, it brings a stronger<br />

student voice to the campus, says<br />

Bush.<br />

“To get fresh and new ideas, it’s<br />

us students,” Bush says. “We know<br />

what we want, students know what<br />

students want, so might as well get<br />

a few of the students to work for<br />

the school.”<br />

Bush wants to enhance the<br />

student experience at DC, not<br />

only just soci<strong>all</strong>y, but by bringing<br />

more awareness to the services the<br />

school has like study spaces and<br />

bring back services students have<br />

lost like daycare.<br />

“College is not just about us<br />

going to school, getting an education<br />

we need,” Bush says. “It’s<br />

something more than that, it’s<br />

Photograph by John Cook<br />

something that’s re<strong>all</strong>y impactful,<br />

something that will last us the rest<br />

of our lives, something that creates<br />

certain memories that we <strong>all</strong><br />

want.”<br />

The main goal for this administration<br />

is to improve DC’s student<br />

life reputation that’s suffered<br />

since the joint DC, UOIT student<br />

association split.<br />

“I want to see people smile and<br />

feel proud to come to Durham<br />

College,” Hayles says.<br />

Durham College has not had<br />

an elected student association<br />

since 2016 after the joint DC,<br />

UOIT student association decided<br />

to separate, leading to the creation<br />

of separate student associations at<br />

the two schools.<br />

While UOIT had its elections<br />

completed without issue in March<br />

of last year, DC’s was cancelled on<br />

March 14, 2017, following threats<br />

of violence against candidates,<br />

accusations of corruption and disagreements<br />

between executives<br />

and staff.<br />

In order to split the student association,<br />

the two sides had to go<br />

to court.<br />

Ontario’s Superior Court appointed<br />

Bill Aziz to oversee the<br />

creation of the separate student<br />

unions. After the failure of DC’s<br />

election, a new order was made,<br />

giving Aziz the power to restructure<br />

and appoint members for<br />

DC’s new student association,<br />

DCSI. There were no elected<br />

officials as DCSI ran a shortterm<br />

operation for F<strong>all</strong> 2017 until<br />

March this year.<br />

Bush beat Shannaanth Rajachandrakumar<br />

and Ferwa Imam<br />

to win VP Internal Affairs.<br />

Olara defeated Haley<br />

Ostapovich, Lindsay Trudell and<br />

Parastoo Sadeghein to win VP<br />

External Affairs.<br />

Kathryn Fraser ran unopposed<br />

for the position of Director -<br />

Media, Art and Design which was<br />

a trend in the Board of Directors<br />

races.<br />

Colleen Anderson is the new<br />

Director – Justice and Emergency<br />

Services and Andrew Nunez-Alvarez<br />

Director – Centre for Food.<br />

Corrina Collette defeated Kirk<br />

Tyler McLean in the Director –<br />

Science and Engineering race.<br />

Director positions for the<br />

School of Skilled Trades, Apprenticeship<br />

and Renewable Technology,<br />

School of Business, IT<br />

and Management and School of<br />

Health and Community Services,<br />

and School of Interdisciplinary<br />

Studies were left vacant.<br />

Hayles and the new DCSI is<br />

receiving training now untl they<br />

take office May 1. Their term will<br />

conclude April 30, 2019.<br />

Privilege posters at UOIT cause controversy<br />

William McGinn<br />

and Heather Snowdon<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

A poster about privileged Canadians<br />

has ignited controversy on<br />

the campus of University of Ontario<br />

Institute of Technology and<br />

Durham College.<br />

The poster, put up in late February,<br />

asked people on campus to<br />

‘Check Your Privilege’ and indicates<br />

it, was presented by UOIT<br />

Equity Ambassadors.<br />

According to the poster, the<br />

definition of ‘privilege’ is: ‘Unearned<br />

access to social power<br />

based on a membership in a dominant<br />

social group’, and the university<br />

printed nine social groups<br />

seen as privileged. They range<br />

from white, male and Christian<br />

to heterosexual, able-bodied physic<strong>all</strong>y<br />

and ment<strong>all</strong>y, and a Canadian<br />

citizen at birth.<br />

The poster prompted response<br />

from students around what privilege<br />

means to them and garnered<br />

reaction from people on and off<br />

campus.<br />

On a conversation forum online<br />

discussing this poster, one<br />

commenter said: “I’ve got two<br />

words for the people who put up<br />

the posters and they’re not ‘good<br />

work’. Another said, “I can’t believe<br />

any university would <strong>all</strong>ow<br />

this.”<br />

The posters have prompted response<br />

beyond campus, including<br />

articles in the Toronto Sun and<br />

National Post.<br />

According to Sarah Rasile, director<br />

of Student Success at UOIT,<br />

the equity ambassadors put up the<br />

poster, not intending to offend students<br />

who f<strong>all</strong> under the categories,<br />

but to add to the conversation<br />

around privilege.<br />

"[Formulating an opinion] is<br />

exactly what we want students to<br />

do, is to see something like this<br />

and think about their own lives<br />

and their own context and re<strong>all</strong>y<br />

take some time to think about<br />

what [privilege] means for them<br />

in their lives," said Rasile.<br />

“We’ve heard from lots of institutions<br />

around the country where<br />

they’re having similar situations<br />

about this topic. It’s something<br />

our students brought forward as<br />

Engineering students at UOIT holding up a photocopy of the privilege posters.<br />

something they felt was a necessary<br />

conversation to have at this<br />

community,” said Rasile.<br />

Although it appeared some<br />

posters had been taken down<br />

around campus, Rasile said the<br />

Equity Ambassadors did not remove<br />

them from the w<strong>all</strong>s.<br />

Rasile said a meeting is being<br />

planned at UOIT to discuss the<br />

reaction and meaning of the poster.<br />

The exact date of that meeting<br />

is not known (at the <strong>Chronicle</strong>’s<br />

deadline), but according to Rasile,<br />

it will be announced on UOIT’s<br />

social media <strong>pages</strong>.<br />

Photograph by Heather Snowdon<br />

The privilege poster sparked<br />

some anger within the community,<br />

but according to Rasile that<br />

wasn’t the intent. Its intent was<br />

to spark conversation about privilege,<br />

discrimination and unfairness,<br />

and it has gotten the job<br />

done.


4 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca<br />

PUBLISHER: Greg Murphy<br />

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Brian Legree<br />

AD MANAGER: Dawn Salter<br />

Editorial<br />

CONTACT US<br />

NEWSROOM: brian.legree@durhamcollege.ca<br />

ADVERTISING: dawn.salter@durhamcollege.ca<br />

Cartoon by Cassidy McMullen<br />

'Privilege' posters handled poorly<br />

‘Check your privilege’<br />

Seems kind of sassy right?<br />

That’s how students and some<br />

media felt after posters asking<br />

students to check their privilege<br />

popped up around UOIT campus<br />

end of Feb.<br />

The student-led campaign was<br />

handled poorly. They should have<br />

designed the poster better, should<br />

have held a discussion and guided<br />

the conversation.<br />

There’s the context: what many<br />

students didn’t see was the corresponding<br />

poster beside it. This poster<br />

made the following statement:<br />

“Becoming aware of privilege<br />

should not be viewed as a burden<br />

or source of guilty, but rather, an<br />

opportunity to learn and be responsible<br />

so that we may work toward<br />

a more just and inclusive world.”<br />

The poster was the centre of the<br />

Equity Ambassadors’ intentions.<br />

Equity Ambassadors at UOIT are<br />

students who have applied for the<br />

position and are interested in a<br />

broad range of human rights issues<br />

and provoke student conversation<br />

through student led initiatives.<br />

Within an average UOIT student<br />

class, it is common to discuss<br />

privilege, globalization, sexism,<br />

governmental structure and rhetoric.<br />

University professors have laid<br />

the groundwork for many of these<br />

conversations and as result UOIT<br />

Equity Ambassadors had a platform<br />

to start their student-led privilege<br />

initiative.<br />

The UOIT Student Life Centre<br />

released a statement about the poster<br />

on their Facebook page:<br />

“Our recent poster campaign<br />

draws attention to the presence<br />

of privilege in our society, and to<br />

help each of us reflect on how these<br />

pieces of our identity might play out<br />

in our daily lives.<br />

We designed these posters with<br />

a group of our students to raise<br />

awareness and encourage the campus<br />

community to help us build and<br />

work toward community of respect<br />

and inclusion.”<br />

Unfortunately, students and<br />

media took offense.<br />

Publications like the Toronto<br />

Sun, Durham Region news, The<br />

Post Millennial, The National<br />

Post and Reddit have <strong>all</strong> picked<br />

up the story and have voiced their<br />

opinions either for or against the<br />

posters.<br />

UOIT says the intention of the<br />

posters was to start conversation.<br />

Although the conversation exploded<br />

among the campus community,<br />

UOIT Student Life and Equity<br />

Ambassadors failed to control the<br />

message.<br />

UOIT should have owned its<br />

poster campaign against the negative<br />

feedback it received. Here’s<br />

what they should have done.<br />

UOIT should have presented<br />

their posters with a better design.<br />

Two separate posters were a terrible<br />

idea. Everyone paid attention<br />

to the first poster which they took<br />

offense to, but ignored the second<br />

that had the real message they were<br />

trying to get across.<br />

It was an easy solution, make a<br />

tabloid sized poster to include the<br />

information from both posters and<br />

invite students to a formal event.<br />

The event could have been placed<br />

where students could discuss the<br />

meaning of the poster and have a<br />

proper conversation surrounding<br />

privilege.<br />

Instead the conversation has<br />

taken place exclusively on social<br />

media. Here has been some of the<br />

reactions of students online:<br />

Steve Hill: “More like Institute<br />

of Bigotry. If you are White, male,<br />

Christian or heterosexual, don't<br />

bother.”<br />

Rochelle Aliyah Montague: “I<br />

as a woman of colour have my own<br />

battles ahead of me HOWEVER!<br />

that doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge<br />

my own privileges.<br />

I check off many of those boxes<br />

but I’m not going to cry about it. No<br />

one is saying I didn’t work hard, it’s<br />

just saying that some may have it<br />

harder and to be aware of it.”<br />

UOIT should have gone offline<br />

and had an event for students to<br />

discuss their opinions.<br />

UOIT Student Life says they are<br />

planning an event but they haven’t<br />

named a date, place or time. They<br />

only thing they’ve done is ask students<br />

to leave their email with them<br />

so they can be informed when they<br />

do decide something. It’s already<br />

been a few weeks.<br />

UOIT should have owned the<br />

conversation they were trying to<br />

start.The university, UOIT Student<br />

Life and the Equity Ambassadors<br />

need to not only spark the conversation<br />

but guide it.<br />

They should be controlling and<br />

supporting the conversation. They<br />

have neglected to comment to local<br />

media and the DC/UOIT newspaper<br />

in search of answers.<br />

Although privilege is an important<br />

conversation to have, the student-run<br />

initiative was just a flop.<br />

They did not present or engage<br />

in the conversation they should<br />

have.<br />

They just pinned up a poster, ran<br />

off and are hiding, waiting for the<br />

conversation to simmer down.<br />

Cassidy McMullen<br />

EDITORS: Austin Andru, Allison Beach, Cameron<br />

Black-Araujo, Michael Bromby, Emily Brooks, Alex<br />

Clelland, John Cook, Tiago De Oliveira, Shana Fillatrau,<br />

Kaatje Henrick, Kirsten Jerry, Claudia Latino,<br />

William McGinn, Cassidy McMullen, Conner Mc-<br />

Tague, Pierre Sanz, Heather Snowdon, Shanelle<br />

Somers,Kayano Waite, Tracy Wright<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong> is published by the Durham College School of Media, Art<br />

and Design, 2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa, Ontario L1H 7L7, 721-<br />

2000 Ext. 3068, as a training vehicle for students enrolled in Journalism and<br />

Advertising courses and as a campus news medium. Opinions expressed<br />

are not necessarily those of the college administration or the board of governors.<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong> is a member of the Ontario Community Newspapers<br />

Association.<br />

MEDIA REPS: Madison Anger, Kevin Baybayan,<br />

Erin Bourne, Hayden Briltz, Rachel Budd, Brendan<br />

Cane, Shannon Gill, Matthew Hiscock, Nathaniel<br />

Houseley, Samuel Huard, Emily Johnston, Sawyer<br />

Kemp, Reema Khoury, Desirea Lewis, Rob<br />

Macdoug<strong>all</strong>, Adam Mayhew, Kathleen Menheere,<br />

Tayler Michaelson, Thomas Pecker, Hailey Russo,<br />

Lady Supa, Jalisa Sterling-Flemmings, Tamara<br />

Talhouk, Alex Thompson, Chris Traianovski<br />

PRODUCTION ARTISTS: Swarnika Ahuja, Bailey<br />

Ashton, Elliott Bradshaw, James Critch-Heyes,<br />

Elisabeth Dugas, Melinda Ernst, Kurtis Grant, Chad<br />

Macdonald, Matthew Meraw, Kaitlyn Millard,<br />

Sofia Mingram, Mary Richardson, Singh Sandhu,<br />

Greg Varty<br />

Publisher: Greg Murphy Editor-In-Chief: Brian Legree Features editor: Teresa Goff Ad Manager: Dawn Salter<br />

Advertising Production Manager: Kevan F. Drinkwalter Photography Editor: Al Fournier Technical Production: Jim Ferr


chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 5<br />

Opinion<br />

It is foolish for a pet to have an expensive funeral<br />

Kirsten<br />

Jerry<br />

The following piece is the opinion of<br />

the Durham College journalism student<br />

whose name and picture accompanies this<br />

column.<br />

Paying thousands of dollars on pet<br />

funerals is foolish.<br />

Having lost four pets, I know it is<br />

difficult and painful, but there is no<br />

reason to spend large amounts of<br />

money, a tasteful backyard burial<br />

is <strong>all</strong> that is required.<br />

That’s how it used to be. So how<br />

did pet funerals begin? It’s <strong>all</strong> part<br />

of the fur baby craze.<br />

Dogs, for example, went from<br />

being working animals to being<br />

stuffed into purses and paraded<br />

down the street in strollers around<br />

2011. Dogs too big for purses are<br />

dressed up with jackets and accessories.<br />

Animals are treated like<br />

children. Ridiculous. But explainable.<br />

Dogs affect us through hormones.<br />

When a human looks into<br />

the eyes of their dog, a hormone<br />

is released. It is c<strong>all</strong>ed oxytocin,<br />

sometimes known as the love hormone,.<br />

This same hormone is released<br />

when a mother looks at their<br />

child as well, thus the confusion.<br />

No matter how we feel about<br />

them, animals are animals and<br />

children are children. Yes, we love<br />

pets, but a pet is not a baby.<br />

If your baby died, would it re<strong>all</strong>y<br />

be the same as losing, say, a parrot?<br />

No. It would not.<br />

People are willing to spend a lot<br />

of money on their pets. According<br />

to Statistics Canada, we went from<br />

annu<strong>all</strong>y spending an average of<br />

$124.50 on pets in 2008, to spending<br />

an average of $590 by 2015.<br />

Pet funerals are a cash grab. The<br />

pet funeral homes and services<br />

know people are willing to spend<br />

extravagant amounts of money on<br />

their pet, even if the pet is dead.<br />

They use our love for our pets to<br />

get our hard-earned money.<br />

A pet casket can cost up to<br />

$616.93 on Amazon. An urn can<br />

cost up to $182.25, and an ashes<br />

keepsake can cost up to $193.51. A<br />

casket and burial can cost $1,116.93<br />

for a sm<strong>all</strong> pet and $1,236.93 for a<br />

large pet, or more. A private cremation<br />

with a service and ash keepsake<br />

can cost $743.51 for a sm<strong>all</strong><br />

pet, and $768.51 for large pets, or<br />

more.<br />

Do we re<strong>all</strong>y need to spend so<br />

much to show our love? What is<br />

wrong with a sm<strong>all</strong>, sentimental<br />

backyard burial?<br />

Burials behind the garden,<br />

marked by transplanted wildflowers<br />

are tasteful. The pet is close<br />

and the process, dignified.<br />

Spending thousands will not<br />

bring your pet back, but it will<br />

empty your bank account.<br />

A burial, at least, is needed to<br />

bring closure after any pet death<br />

but there is no need to spend thousands<br />

on a lavish pet funeral.<br />

Yes, the burial should be respectful.<br />

Yes, the pet, be it dog, cat, fish,<br />

bird or rodent, will be missed and is<br />

irreplaceable. No two animals are<br />

the same. No, they will not mind if<br />

you spend $0 on their funeral. All<br />

a pet needs is love.<br />

Stop this nonsense and go back<br />

to treating beloved pets as what<br />

they truly are. Pets.<br />

Oshawa could benefit from more defensive design downtown<br />

Austin<br />

Andru<br />

The following piece is the opinion of<br />

the Durham College journalism student<br />

whose name and picture accompanies this<br />

column.<br />

Cities like Oshawa need defensive<br />

design tactics to control behaviour<br />

and misconduct.<br />

Defensive design can be seen<br />

at almost every bus stop in Oshawa,<br />

just take a look at the narrow<br />

benches and armrests that make it<br />

impossible for people to sleep on<br />

them. We need more of it.<br />

According to Homelesshub.ca,<br />

there are 0 chronic<strong>all</strong>y homeless<br />

people in the Durham Region, with<br />

1,391 households accessing emergency<br />

shelter. Since we don’t have<br />

any chronic<strong>all</strong>y homeless, design<br />

should be used to prevent people<br />

from spending long periods of time<br />

in public places.<br />

Design is an effective and subtle<br />

way to control loitering in public<br />

environments. Park benches, spiked<br />

surfaces and rocks under bridges <strong>all</strong><br />

discourage loitering.<br />

These barriers have been met<br />

with a large amount of criticism,<br />

but it is an important thing to have<br />

in cities because design should discourage<br />

loitering and prevent drug<br />

stashing.<br />

A homeless person should not be<br />

sleeping under bridges when there<br />

are options. Housing options in<br />

the Durham Region are available<br />

at places such as the Cornerstone<br />

Community Association, Durham<br />

Youth Housing and Support Services.<br />

Homelesshub.ca indicates in<br />

2014, there were <strong>28</strong> transitional<br />

housing beds, 93 emergency beds<br />

and 13 domiciliary hostel beds<br />

in the Durham Region. At a rate<br />

of 5.7 per cent unemployment, it<br />

is safe to say that homelessness is<br />

relatively controlled.<br />

There are eight food banks<br />

in Oshawa: Knox Presbyterian<br />

Church, New Life Neighbourhood<br />

Centre, Salvation Army, Seventh<br />

Day Adventist Community Centre,<br />

Simcoe H<strong>all</strong> Settlement House,<br />

St. Peter’s Food Bank and two St.<br />

Vincent de Paul Society locations.<br />

In February, the Simcoe Street<br />

United Church inst<strong>all</strong>ed 12 lockers<br />

for homeless people to store their<br />

belongings.<br />

Design prevents people from<br />

occupying certain areas for long<br />

periods of time. This encourages<br />

the use of shelter services.<br />

When Montreal inst<strong>all</strong>ed anti<br />

homeless spikes at a book store<br />

it was met with largely negative<br />

comments on twitter, and even the<br />

mayor of Montreal c<strong>all</strong>ed it “unacceptable”.<br />

It is fair to say that this design is<br />

a bit aggressive and that it pushes<br />

social norms. However, it is not safe<br />

for homeless people to be in densely<br />

populated areas.<br />

It creates an unsafe environment<br />

for the homeless person and the<br />

people in the area.<br />

Design should not be encouraging<br />

people to sleep in the street,<br />

it should be preventing people from<br />

doing so: the same way studs on escalators<br />

prevent kids from sliding<br />

down them.<br />

Homeless shelters may not be the<br />

best dwellings, and there is a case<br />

to be made that there is a lot that<br />

needs to be done to improve them,<br />

but it is certainly better than the<br />

streets.<br />

Defensive design needs to be<br />

done with care though. For instance,<br />

eliminating benches and<br />

places to sit entirely is especi<strong>all</strong>y<br />

unfair for the public. The idea is<br />

to have a design that <strong>all</strong>ows someone<br />

to rest temporarily but not long<br />

term.<br />

Having nowhere to sit is unfair<br />

for homeless people, elderly, and<br />

disabled people who could benefit<br />

from sitting somewhere for a short<br />

period of time. The design needs to<br />

prevent behaviours (such as sleeping)<br />

without punishing people who<br />

may benefit.<br />

Benches still provide a place for<br />

people to sit, but the armrests prevent<br />

people from staying long for<br />

periods of time.<br />

Public spaces can be enjoyed<br />

even with defensive elements.<br />

Most people don’t even notice the<br />

defensive design around them and<br />

Oshawa could benefit from more<br />

in the city’s centre.<br />

The Ontario government should get rid of public Catholic schools<br />

Cassidy<br />

McMullen<br />

The following piece is the opinion of<br />

the Durham College journalism student<br />

whose name and picture accompanies this<br />

column.<br />

While Canada has always had<br />

Catholic schools, they became publicly<br />

funded in the 19th-century<br />

when government-funded schools<br />

were created.<br />

Catholics feared public schools<br />

would convert their children to the<br />

dominant Protestant religion at the<br />

time so they created public Catholic<br />

schools.<br />

Lots of changes have been made<br />

to both the school system and Canada<br />

since then.<br />

As a result, it’s time for Ontario<br />

to make a change to the school<br />

board system.<br />

Ontario needs to get rid of publicly<br />

funded Catholic schools.<br />

Being Catholic is fine. Canada<br />

is a wonderful country.<br />

Citizens have the right to practice<br />

any religion but public schools<br />

are funded through tax money to<br />

provide <strong>all</strong> students with an academic<br />

education.<br />

Tax money shouldn’t go towards<br />

your child’s religious education, especi<strong>all</strong>y<br />

not one that doesn’t even<br />

uphold Canadian values.<br />

In Canada, marriage, whether<br />

it’s to a female or male, is legal and<br />

accepted.<br />

The Catholic Church still stands<br />

that a marriage is between a man<br />

and a woman.<br />

Being homosexual is fine, but<br />

having a relationship with another<br />

homosexual is sinful, says the Vatican.<br />

Some people might praise Pope<br />

Francis, the head of the Catholic<br />

Church, for having a softer, more<br />

inclusive stance on core concerns<br />

of the church but he is still against<br />

Canadian values.<br />

Pope Francis says he opposes<br />

gender theory: the idea that gender<br />

is separated from your biological<br />

sex. He opposes the idea of schools<br />

teaching students about the LG-<br />

BTQ+ community because that<br />

would be promoting or endorsing<br />

such “tendencies” the Catholic<br />

church has deemed sinful.<br />

Tendencies that Canada have<br />

found worth protecting in our<br />

Charter of Humans Rights. Section<br />

15 in the charter protects Canadians<br />

from discrimination based<br />

off identities that the Church deems<br />

sinful.<br />

Or, maybe we should touch on<br />

the fact of the pain and devastation<br />

the Catholic Church has caused<br />

our country and our citizens.<br />

Out of the 130 residential schools<br />

run in Canada, three quarters were<br />

run by the Catholic Church.<br />

While the church has participated<br />

in the $1.9 billion compensation<br />

plan for the victims, they<br />

still haven’t form<strong>all</strong>y apologized<br />

for their role.<br />

The Anglican Church, the Presbyterian<br />

Church and the United<br />

Church <strong>all</strong> apologized in the 90’s<br />

for their role. The Catholic Church<br />

holds on to the fact it was individual<br />

diocesan bishops’ decision to<br />

run the schools, so they don’t have<br />

anything to apologize for.<br />

An estimated 150,000 First Nation,<br />

Inuit and Metis children were<br />

forced to attend these schools where<br />

they were neglected, abused, cut off<br />

from their families and murder in<br />

an attempt to wipe out their culture,<br />

and effectively, them.<br />

And the Catholic Church is still<br />

<strong>all</strong>owed to have a publicly funded<br />

school board in Canada.<br />

The Church did apologize for<br />

the hundreds of suspected victims<br />

of sexual abuse committed by<br />

their clergy in their churches and<br />

schools, but they never backed it<br />

with effective change, according<br />

to Barbara Blaine, the president of<br />

Survivors Network of those abused<br />

by Priests.<br />

Instead, Pope Francis defends<br />

paedophiles.<br />

Recently, he defended Juan<br />

Barros, a Bishop in Chile that was<br />

accused of sexual assault. A judge<br />

found the victims to be truthful in a<br />

case against Rev Fernando Karadima,<br />

where it was said that Barros<br />

was in the room during the abuse.<br />

Pope Francis followed up with<br />

a statement saying we shouldn’t<br />

believe the victims, because their<br />

word isn’t good enough and accused<br />

them of slander.<br />

A photo of Pope Francis, a man<br />

who <strong>all</strong>ows the abuse of children<br />

and protects these predators, hangs<br />

in our public schools; a man who<br />

doesn’t believe in our right to decide<br />

our gender or who we have<br />

relationships with; a man who<br />

doesn’t think the systematic abuse<br />

of 150, 000 children is something<br />

to apologize for.<br />

That is the person students in<br />

Canadian public schools are asked<br />

to look up to.<br />

If the Catholic church is not<br />

going to uphold Canadian values,<br />

then they have no place in our public-school<br />

system. It is time for Ontario<br />

to get rid of publicly funded<br />

Catholic schools.


6 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus<br />

Plans for geothermal ‘heat up’<br />

John Cook<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Durham College is set to get a<br />

little greener next year as the<br />

aging Simcoe Building is demolished<br />

and a renewable energy centre<br />

is set up in its place.<br />

Durham MPP Granville Anderson<br />

was on campus March 12<br />

to announce the provincial government<br />

will give $14.7 million<br />

toward upgrades to DC’s existing<br />

green technology and to begin the<br />

first phase of the construction of a<br />

geothermal energy centre.<br />

Geothermal energy is a form<br />

of renewable energy that deals<br />

mainly with heating and cooling<br />

of buildings. This type of green<br />

energy originates deep underground<br />

and is tapped into by way<br />

of drilling.<br />

Doug Crossman, manager of<br />

Mechanical Systems and Energy<br />

for DC, says the college’s plans for<br />

a geothermal system are known as<br />

a borehole thermal energy storage<br />

system (BTESS).<br />

The system involves drilling<br />

deep “boreholes” into the earth<br />

and inst<strong>all</strong>ing piping through the<br />

holes.<br />

“Once we bore about 500 feet<br />

into the ground the temperature<br />

remains fairly constant,” says<br />

Crossman. “We pull some of that<br />

temperature out of the ground [in<br />

colder months] and through refrigerant<br />

we use it to heat buildings.”<br />

Crossman says during the<br />

summer months the centre will<br />

pump heat underground through<br />

the same holes for storage until<br />

the warm weather ends.<br />

Geothermal energy does not<br />

produce greenhouse gasses, but<br />

the heat pumps and refrigerant<br />

systems use external power. This<br />

means geothermal, when used<br />

alongside other renewable forms<br />

of electricity generation, is a zero-emission<br />

system.<br />

Photograph by John Cook<br />

Durham College president Don Lovisa speaking at the geothermal field project announcement.<br />

“Ide<strong>all</strong>y you are able to obtain<br />

the maximum amount of emission<br />

reduction through a combination<br />

of emissions-free generating systems<br />

and geothermal BTESStype<br />

systems,” says Crossman.<br />

“Those are the most effective<br />

types of systems.”<br />

The geothermal field will be<br />

located on the current site of the<br />

Simcoe Building, which is scheduled<br />

for closure and demolition<br />

later this year. The project will be<br />

completed in several phases, with<br />

the first phase to be completed<br />

over the course of this year and<br />

next.<br />

Durham College president<br />

Don Lovisa says the field will provide<br />

more benefits to the school<br />

beyond emissions reduction. He<br />

says the site will be used as a<br />

“working classroom” space for<br />

students.<br />

“The Simcoe Geothermal<br />

Field, along with a connected<br />

heat-pump plant will become a<br />

living lab on-campus that will be<br />

incorporated into the curricula of<br />

numerous programs to address<br />

new green energy technologies<br />

and careers,” says Lovisa.<br />

The bulk of the investment,<br />

more than $9 million, will be used<br />

for the construction of the BTESS<br />

system. The remainder will be <strong>all</strong>ocated<br />

to upgrading DC’s “green<br />

technology,” such as automated<br />

lights, as well as an interest-free<br />

loan to fund projects which are<br />

yet-to-be-determined.<br />

In his announcement, Anderson<br />

c<strong>all</strong>ed the geothermal project<br />

“exciting and wonderful.”<br />

“I am extremely proud that<br />

[geothermal energy production]<br />

will be implemented in our community,”<br />

he said.<br />

Global Class<br />

discusses racial<br />

discrimination<br />

Cassidy McMullen<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

“What can we do as one great<br />

human civilization…to eliminate<br />

racial discrimination?”<br />

That’s the question Lon Appleby<br />

asked of students in the Global<br />

Class on March 14.<br />

The global class is a general<br />

education course (GNED) available<br />

at DC. Using advanced<br />

technology, the class can video<br />

chat with people from around the<br />

world <strong>all</strong>owing students to discuss<br />

international issues and hear different<br />

perspectives.<br />

DC’s Global Class hosted Centennial<br />

College, a group from<br />

Luskia, Zambia and two Israel<br />

colleges for a discussion on racial<br />

discrimination just ahead of<br />

the United Nations (UN) International<br />

Day of Elimination of<br />

Racial Discrimination.<br />

The International Day for the<br />

Elimination of Racial Discrimination<br />

is observed March 21 annu<strong>all</strong>y.<br />

The day was proclaimed<br />

in 1966, six years after 69 people<br />

were shot by police after a peaceful<br />

demonstration against racist<br />

laws in Sharpeville, South Africa.<br />

In the class, students shared<br />

struggles their countries are facing<br />

with racial discrimination<br />

and personal experiences.<br />

In Luskia, Zambia, racial discrimination<br />

branches into economic<br />

inequality.<br />

Ireen Silweya, who organizes<br />

groups of people in her community<br />

to join in on Global Class discussions,<br />

explained how since a<br />

lot of property is owned by white<br />

Zambians, it’s hard to buy land.<br />

“White sells to white,” Silweya<br />

said.<br />

A student of hers explained<br />

how his family was denied the<br />

opportunity to buy land from a<br />

white land owner who wouldn’t<br />

sell it, preferring to let a white<br />

Zambian to buy the land instead.<br />

“It was a black-white issue,”<br />

Silweya said. “And it ended like<br />

that.”<br />

Derrick Reinsma, a nursing<br />

student in his last semester, was<br />

looking for another GNED to take<br />

when he stumbled upon the global<br />

class. Based on the video Appleby<br />

made, he thought the course<br />

looked interesting so he signed up.<br />

Now taking the course, Reinsma<br />

especi<strong>all</strong>y likes how they touch<br />

on “big picture thinking” rather<br />

than “everyday sm<strong>all</strong> stuff.”<br />

“It just connects us to different<br />

world perspectives that we<br />

wouldn’t experience in our everyday<br />

lives,” Reinsma said.<br />

Reinsma suggested in the<br />

global class racial discrimination<br />

comes from intolerance and a fundamental<br />

hatred of not only other<br />

people but yourself.<br />

“Today’s class gave us a new<br />

perspective to see how people felt<br />

racism in different cultures and it<br />

helped us get down to the fundamentals<br />

of what we should change<br />

in our lives to change racism on a<br />

global scale,” Reinsma said.<br />

Appleby guided the conversation,<br />

focusing on the world’s development<br />

and failure since the<br />

UN’s creation of the Universal<br />

Declaration of Human Rights<br />

70 years ago after World War II,<br />

which Appleby described as “the<br />

worst war in human kind.”<br />

Section one of the Declaration<br />

of Human rights was specific<strong>all</strong>y<br />

discussed:<br />

“All human beings are born<br />

free and equal in dignity and<br />

rights. They are endowed with<br />

reason and conscience and should<br />

act towards one another in a spirit<br />

Photograph by Cassidy McMullen<br />

The Global Class, led by Lon Appleby (centre), participates in an international discussion about<br />

racial discrimination over video chat.<br />

of brotherhood.”<br />

“It shouldn’t be a day of celebration,”<br />

Silweya said.<br />

It should be a day to look at<br />

implementing change and finding<br />

ways to make it sustainable, he<br />

said.<br />

The theme for this year’s International<br />

Day of Elimination of<br />

Racial Discrimination is tolerance,<br />

inclusion, unity and respect<br />

for diversity in the context of combating<br />

racial discrimination with<br />

a focus on migrants and people of<br />

African descent.


Community chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 7<br />

Girls will take flight in Oshawa<br />

Aly Beach<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Women and girls have a chance<br />

to take to the skies at Girls Take<br />

Flight Oshawa, a free aviation<br />

event meant to encourage girls and<br />

women to go into aviation.<br />

Presented by The First Canadian<br />

99s and Durham Flight Centre, the<br />

event will feature information and<br />

education sessions, aviation and<br />

aerospace professionals, aircraft<br />

displays and discussion panels.<br />

There will be booths and exhibitioners<br />

including air cadets, and<br />

representatives from Seneca College<br />

and Georgian College, which<br />

both offer aviation programs.<br />

Girls Take Flight Oshawa will<br />

be hosting female guest speakers<br />

including an airline pilot, a mechanic<br />

and a military pilot.<br />

“We have speakers and they’re<br />

going to be able to inspire the girls<br />

by sharing their stories and telling<br />

them a little bit about what it’s like<br />

in their particular career,” says Lesley<br />

Page, pilot, event founder and<br />

main organizer.<br />

Girls and women are being offered<br />

200 free flights at this year’s<br />

event, which takes place April 21<br />

at the Oshawa airport.<br />

Last year, Girls Take Flight was<br />

able to provide 188 free flights.<br />

Registration starts April 1 at girlstakeflight.ca.<br />

“We have usu<strong>all</strong>y 12 to 15 pilots<br />

who fly and they fly their own aircraft<br />

and they donate their time,<br />

fuel and aircraft to make sure we<br />

fly as many women and girls as<br />

possible,” says Page.<br />

Page says it’s important to introduce<br />

more women to aviation for<br />

two reasons:<br />

Only six per cent of pilots are<br />

women and that number is even<br />

lower among airline pilots.<br />

Photograph courtesy of Girls Take Flight Oshawa<br />

A young girl participating in one of the free flights offered at 2017's Girls Take Flight Oshawa<br />

Page thinks everybody does better<br />

when there are more women<br />

involved.<br />

The second reason is the untapped<br />

demographic that can help<br />

with the current pilot shortage,<br />

something that has become more<br />

apparent recently.<br />

“An obvious way to combat the<br />

pilot shortage is to target women to<br />

fit in the industry,” she says.<br />

Page is a private pilot who got<br />

her licence in 2007 at the age of 52.<br />

She was inspired when her husband<br />

took her on her first sm<strong>all</strong> airplane<br />

flight in 2005.<br />

“It was love at first flight, so I<br />

decided life was too short to be a<br />

passenger so I quit my job to learn<br />

how to fly,” says Page.<br />

She is also a member of the Canadian<br />

99s, the largest chapter of<br />

the largest organization of female<br />

aviators.<br />

It was founded in 1929, and according<br />

to Page, Amelia Earhart<br />

was the organization’s first president.<br />

Page describes flying as a freeing,<br />

empowering experience.<br />

She says there is a sense of pride<br />

in becoming a pilot.<br />

“There is a sense of accomplishment<br />

once you’ve obtained that licence,<br />

that is not everybody in the<br />

world has the capacity and the…<br />

dexterity to become a pilot,” says<br />

Page.<br />

Page says the event is about<br />

breaking perceptions and stereotypes.<br />

“We want them to spark an interest<br />

and we want them to know<br />

aviation and aerospace are an option<br />

for girls. There’s a perception<br />

that aviation and aerospace is for<br />

boys, for men,” says Page.<br />

Girls Inc.:<br />

Helping build<br />

confidence<br />

Tracy Wright<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Self-harming, low self-esteem, poor<br />

body image -these are just a few<br />

examples of issues girls who attend<br />

Girls Inc. might have.<br />

Brianna Thorne, 18, is an alumnus<br />

of the Girls Inc. program. She<br />

started out when it was suggested<br />

by her principal and teacher at<br />

Gandatsetiagon Public School<br />

Pickering in Grade 8. She was<br />

hesitant to join the group as she<br />

was a tomboy and did not hang<br />

out with girls.<br />

“I was scared to be in a room<br />

with other girls,” she says, adding,<br />

“I eventu<strong>all</strong>y warmed up.”<br />

“Before Girls Inc. I was very<br />

self-conscious. I didn’t have any<br />

friends and I had low self-esteem.”<br />

She says she learned to accept<br />

herself for who she is.<br />

Thorne went on to become a<br />

volunteer and then later a camp<br />

counsellor at Girls Inc. She currently<br />

attends York University and<br />

is studying psychology.<br />

Girls Inc. is a non-profit U.S.-<br />

based organization which started<br />

in 1864. Its mission is to empower<br />

girls and their motto encourages<br />

girls to be strong, smart and bold.<br />

The group was origin<strong>all</strong>y part of<br />

the Big Sister movement, which<br />

was a program pairing women in<br />

a mentor-style relationship with<br />

younger girls.<br />

After operating as a program<br />

within Big Sisters, Girls Inc. Durham<br />

was created in 2002 following<br />

the amalgamation of Big Sisters<br />

with Big Brothers. The plan was<br />

to continue programming specific<strong>all</strong>y<br />

for girls. A grant was received<br />

from Ontario Trillium Foundation<br />

in 2004. Girls Inc. used that funding<br />

to open two other locations<br />

in Durham – south Oshawa and<br />

Pickering.<br />

They also put additional programs<br />

in place, such as the Girls<br />

Inc. Operation SMART program.<br />

In 2005, they started the Canada<br />

Prenatal Nutrition Program<br />

(CPNP) otherwise known as Food<br />

4 Thought. Then in 2006, Girls<br />

Inc. day camp was initiated for girls<br />

aged six to 12. This camp covers <strong>all</strong><br />

eight programs provided by Girls<br />

Inc.<br />

Tracey McCanell, director of<br />

programming says, “everyday,<br />

Young girls and women who participate with Girls Inc., a non-profit organization.<br />

Girls Inc. puts our mission into<br />

practice through the Girls Inc.<br />

Experience, which equips girls to<br />

navigate gender, economic, and social<br />

barriers and grow into healthy,<br />

educated, and independent adults.”<br />

Girls Inc. was one of the first<br />

affiliates in Canada to receive the<br />

Standard of Excellence Award.<br />

This international award recognizes<br />

an organization that goes beyond<br />

standard practices and achieves<br />

excellence in programming, marketing,<br />

governance, advocacy and<br />

fund development.<br />

“We want our girls to have a<br />

positive experience,” says Emma<br />

Conner, former Girls Inc. community<br />

development manager.<br />

“Learn and grow. And become the<br />

best version of themselves.”<br />

They cater to a lot of girls and<br />

young women from age six to 18.<br />

“We are trying to empower our<br />

girls and help to change society so<br />

when girls go out into the world<br />

they’re met with opportunities instead<br />

of barriers. Also, met with<br />

support instead of judgment, there’s<br />

a lot of work left to be done,” says<br />

Conner.<br />

Not <strong>all</strong> girls who come to Girls<br />

Inc. want to hear what is being<br />

said. Some come at their parents’<br />

suggestion.<br />

However, they do provide mentor<br />

role models to work with them.<br />

“We genuinely believe that if you<br />

Photograph by Tracy Wright<br />

have someone is in your corner telling<br />

you that you are worth it. You<br />

deserve to be heard. You are smart,<br />

you’re strong and you are bold. You<br />

deserve opportunities. Then you’re<br />

going to start to believe it yourself,”<br />

says Conner.<br />

“The essential elements and the<br />

foundational Girls Inc. Experience<br />

have been developed to impact<br />

girls, their families and society,”<br />

says McCannell.<br />

Thorne says the encounter has<br />

helped her build herself up and<br />

have healthier relationships. “[Girls<br />

Inc.] had a re<strong>all</strong>y, re<strong>all</strong>y big impact<br />

on my life” says Thorne.<br />

“It will change you and help you<br />

grow in so many ways.”


8 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus<br />

Photograph by Conner McTague<br />

Shish Tawook and Muhammara, two Middle Eastern dishes made by student John Cook.<br />

A feast from the Middle East<br />

The perfect<br />

food for<br />

a night in<br />

with you<br />

and yours<br />

In many ways, the Middle East<br />

might just be the polar opposite of<br />

Canada.<br />

Canada is known for its frigid<br />

temperatures in the winter<br />

months, while most of the Middle<br />

East is swelteringly hot yearround.<br />

The Middle East is an area<br />

steeped in rich tradition and history.<br />

Canada has long suffered from<br />

an identity crisis, brought on by<br />

the historic<strong>all</strong>y conflicting French<br />

and English Canadian customs,<br />

as well as the ch<strong>all</strong>enges of being<br />

the one of the most multicultural<br />

countries in the world.<br />

But we both love good, hearty<br />

food.<br />

For many Canadians, the<br />

phrase “Middle Eastern food”<br />

might conjure up mental pictures<br />

of fragrant, unbearably spicy food<br />

made using unfamiliar ingredients.<br />

In reality, the cuisine of countries<br />

like Syria, Iraq and Lebanon<br />

can be made with varying levels of<br />

Prep time: 8 hours – 24 hours (depending<br />

on how tender you like it)<br />

Serves: 4 people<br />

Ingredients: 2 or 3 skinless, boneless<br />

chicken breasts (about 1kg)<br />

• ½ cup plain yogurt (use 2 per cent for a<br />

creamier flavour)<br />

• ¼ cup lemon juice (or the juice of 1<br />

whole fresh lemon)<br />

• 1 tbsp. garlic powder (or use two cloves<br />

of fresh garlic)<br />

• 2 tbsp. tomato paste<br />

• 1 tsp. ground cumin<br />

• 1 tsp. dried red chili flakes<br />

• ½ tsp. ground cinnamon<br />

• ½ tsp. ground ginger<br />

• ½ tsp. black pepper<br />

• ¼ tsp. cardamom<br />

• Salt to taste<br />

• One or two whole bell peppers (any<br />

colour)<br />

• One whole onion (preferably white)<br />

John<br />

Cook<br />

Shish Tawook<br />

• Olive oil (use as much or as little as you<br />

like)<br />

• Parsley (optional)<br />

Steps:<br />

1) Cut chicken breasts into approx. 2<br />

inch chunks, set aside.<br />

2) Mix together the yogurt, tomato paste,<br />

lemon juice, spices and olive oil in a sm<strong>all</strong><br />

container until smooth.<br />

3) Place the chicken and marinade in a<br />

bag, making sure the chicken is coated. Refrigerate<br />

for at least 8 hours.<br />

4) Preheat oven to 375∞F.<br />

5) Chop bell peppers and onion into<br />

rough chunks, remove chicken from<br />

fridge. Assemble kebabs on wooden (or<br />

metal if you’re fancy) skewers.<br />

6) Place in a lightly greased baking<br />

tray, and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until<br />

chicken is fully cooked and no longer pink.<br />

7) Serve over rice, salad or pita,<br />

garnish with parsley and/or hot sauceseems<br />

to taste best).<br />

Prep time:


Community chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 9<br />

Human trafficking 'prevalent' in Durham<br />

This is part one of a two-part series on<br />

human trafficking in Durham. Part two<br />

will appear in <strong>Issue</strong> 10.<br />

Shanelle Somers<br />

and Shana Fillatrau<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Durham Region is on the 401,<br />

making it a hot-bed for human<br />

trafficking because victims are<br />

easily and quickly moved around<br />

from city to city. Hotels along the<br />

highway make it easy for pimps to<br />

hide these women in plain sight.<br />

Jason Price, detective constable<br />

in the Durham Regional Police<br />

Services human-trafficking unit,<br />

says many of the hotel owners and<br />

staff have been educated on the<br />

warning signs. He says one of their<br />

most recent investigations started<br />

with a tip from a hotel staffer.<br />

Hotels and motels along Kingston<br />

Road are known to be temporary<br />

housing to pimps, victims and<br />

their clients. Toronto Police have<br />

a project focusing on these hotels<br />

named Hotel Tango 2.<br />

They are living “very transient”<br />

lifestyles, according to Price. They<br />

are forced to service (a professional<br />

term used by traffickers to describe<br />

a woman engaging in forced sexual<br />

activity), fed minimal and/or poor<br />

food and are sometimes denied<br />

feminine hygiene products.<br />

“People would be surprised to<br />

know how prevalent it is in the hotels<br />

within the region,” says Price.<br />

“The members of the public would<br />

be baffled at how active it is, the<br />

ages of the girls that are involved<br />

and the amount of money that’s<br />

being spent on it.”<br />

What can you do to keep your<br />

loved ones from ending up in these<br />

hotels? Pay attention, says Price.<br />

Young women with low self-esteem<br />

are especi<strong>all</strong>y vulnerable. There<br />

are many red flags, according to<br />

Price.<br />

These include unexplained gifts<br />

or money, long absences, change in<br />

mental health, multiple cellphones<br />

and new friends or boyfriend.<br />

Jeff Tucker, another detective<br />

constable in the human-trafficking<br />

unit of seven, says, “I think that<br />

would re<strong>all</strong>y shock the public to see<br />

that these are the girls next door.”<br />

In Durham, Tucker says their<br />

youngest victim was 13-years-old.<br />

She was first trafficked at the age<br />

of nine.<br />

Within the last few months,<br />

Tucker says they’re seeing girls 14<br />

and 15-years-old being victimized<br />

the most.<br />

The most common tactic is<br />

c<strong>all</strong>ed the “boyfriend trafficker.”<br />

A younger pimp is used to lure in<br />

the girls with affection, romance<br />

and gifts. The relationship usu<strong>all</strong>y<br />

moves quickly and the boyfriend<br />

makes a lot of promises he can’t<br />

keep, like marriage or moving in<br />

together.<br />

This makes the girl feel loved<br />

and secure, especi<strong>all</strong>y if she has<br />

low self-esteem. Then the boyfriend<br />

comes into trouble. He needs<br />

money and the girl is expected to<br />

help. It usu<strong>all</strong>y starts when he asks<br />

her to do one explicit activity -<br />

stripping, or service a client just<br />

one time. If she does, she’s trapped.<br />

This is also c<strong>all</strong>ed the “Romeo<br />

Pimp.”<br />

Durham Regional Police Services human trafficking unit officers Jason Price (left) and Jeff Tucker.<br />

These girls also need to be wary<br />

of female lures as well. These traffickers<br />

are c<strong>all</strong>ed the “Bottom<br />

B**ch.” This is when the main<br />

pimp picks his “best girl” to recruit<br />

for him. She is busy, therefore services<br />

less so it motivates her to do<br />

his dirty work.<br />

The police officers also feel social<br />

media has made things harder.<br />

Price says, “It’s certainly has grown<br />

because of social media.”<br />

Another unforeseen effect of social<br />

media, as well as pop culture,<br />

according to Tucker, is girls are<br />

being desensitized.<br />

The elaborate and expensive<br />

lives they see on TV and in movies,<br />

“that’s the lifestyle that these guys<br />

are selling. Bottom line, it’s an easy<br />

sell.” Price says, “The younger they<br />

are, the easier it is for them to do.”<br />

These are some of the reasons<br />

why Tucker and Price feel it’s important<br />

to raise awareness about<br />

the issue.<br />

“This is Canada, this is not<br />

something that should be <strong>all</strong>owed<br />

or tolerated. We need to make sure<br />

those folks who do this are punished<br />

to the true extent of the law,”<br />

says John Henry, Oshawa mayor.<br />

Police give presentations about<br />

the warning signs to young girls.<br />

The presentation is only given to<br />

females because they don’t want to<br />

give males tools on how to traffic<br />

girls.<br />

This educates teachers on the red<br />

I think that would shock the public<br />

to see that these are the<br />

girls next door.<br />

flags, as well.<br />

Teachers within the Durham<br />

Region have played a key role in<br />

successfully identifying students<br />

who may be a victim of human<br />

trafficking. Tucker says, “To date,<br />

any teacher or VP has been correct.”<br />

Price says the unit gets their<br />

leads from teachers, parents or<br />

Crime Stoppers.<br />

Tucker’s his main concern is<br />

getting through to the victim.<br />

“They’ve been brainwashed by the<br />

person who’s controlling them,” he<br />

says.<br />

But these traffickers can sometimes<br />

be difficult to track, partly<br />

due to technology. Texting apps<br />

make it difficult to keep track of<br />

phone records and pre-paid credit<br />

cards can make it almost impossible<br />

to keep record of the pimp’s<br />

purchases.<br />

Project Protect is an initiative<br />

working to support police to combat<br />

this.<br />

The initiative started in 2016 and<br />

was introduced in partnership with<br />

Financial Transactions and Reports<br />

Analysis Centre of Canada,<br />

known as FinTrac.<br />

FinTrac works with Canada’s<br />

five major banks to follow the<br />

transactions of traffickers. They<br />

monitor suspicious purchases such<br />

as multiple hotel stays, motel bookings,<br />

pharmacy purchases, latenight<br />

ATM deposits and Uber or<br />

taxi payments.<br />

Once a suspicious transaction is<br />

found, FinTrac will notify law enforcement.<br />

FinTrac has been a successful aid<br />

in providing tips to police across<br />

Canada and gathering evidence<br />

against <strong>all</strong>eged human traffickers.<br />

BMO banker and coordinator<br />

of Project Protect, Peter Warrack,<br />

says one of the main ways they are<br />

able to flag suspicious activity is<br />

through advertisement purchases.<br />

However, they are not tracking<br />

ordinary advertisement purchases<br />

you typic<strong>all</strong>y see online. These ads<br />

are specific<strong>all</strong>y made, purchased<br />

and marketed for escort service<br />

websites like back<strong>pages</strong>.com, a<br />

website many men visit to purchase<br />

young trafficked girls and/<br />

or women.<br />

Warrack says BMO cross-references<br />

transaction systems and flags<br />

people or companies who are making<br />

payments towards those types<br />

of ads.<br />

“We have noticed that almost 99<br />

per cent of these ads are on back<strong>pages</strong>.com,”<br />

says Warrack.<br />

To date, Durham Regional<br />

Police have not received any tips<br />

from FinTrac but they do rely on<br />

the similar strategies when gathering<br />

evidence against a human<br />

trafficker.<br />

“I can tell you that I’m proud of<br />

the work they do each and every<br />

day and you know you can see the<br />

difference that they make in communities.<br />

But it’s only through<br />

help through the community that<br />

we can fix things. So if you know<br />

something that’s wrong please take<br />

the opportunity to contact the<br />

regional police,” says mayor Henry.<br />

Ontario’s Ministry of Community<br />

and Social Services is also developing<br />

strategies to stop human<br />

trafficking.<br />

Jennifer Richardson, Director of<br />

the Provincial Anti-Human Trafficking<br />

Coordination Office, says,<br />

“Two out of three police reported<br />

Photograph by Shana Fillatrau<br />

cases of human trafficking in Canada<br />

are in Ontario.” Recognizing<br />

how vigorous human trafficking is<br />

within Ontario despite the sparsity<br />

of data available, the provincial<br />

government has invested 72 million<br />

dollars towards holding human<br />

traffickers accountable, educating<br />

communities, and developing Indigenous-led<br />

approaches to stop<br />

trafficking.<br />

“We are the third province in<br />

Canada to have a strategy to fight<br />

human trafficking … and as far as<br />

I am aware, it is one of the largest<br />

financial investments in North<br />

America,” says Richardson, who<br />

was recently on a panel as part of a<br />

human trafficking prevention event<br />

held at the University of Ontario<br />

Institute of Technology.<br />

The provincial government also<br />

realizes the importance of working<br />

with people who have been involved<br />

in trafficking and affected<br />

by trafficking. Richardson says<br />

they work with a lot of people who<br />

are experienced and who have been<br />

involved in trafficking. “One of my<br />

bosses comes from lived experience,”<br />

says Richardson.<br />

These professionals believe it is<br />

important to be passionate about<br />

stopping human trafficking. Tucker<br />

says, “You can’t help but be emotion<strong>all</strong>y<br />

invested.”<br />

Human trafficking is happening<br />

in Durham but knowing the red<br />

flags can make a difference in a<br />

potential victim’s life.<br />

Mayor Henry says the public<br />

needs to be part of the solution in<br />

ending human trafficking.<br />

“You have a voice. Our democracy<br />

is a democracy that demands<br />

participation. So if you see something<br />

that’s wrong take the time,<br />

make the c<strong>all</strong>, send the email, let’s<br />

work together to make Canada the<br />

greatest place to live. We can do<br />

this if we work together. You know<br />

being silent doesn’t help the issue,”<br />

says mayor Henry.


10 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus<br />

Dining differently in Brooklin<br />

Claudia Latino<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

The Copper Branch restaurant in<br />

Brooklin is doing things differently<br />

these days. It has improved its menu<br />

to become more viewer-friendly,<br />

including easy-to-read text, fewer<br />

pictures, and short descriptions of<br />

their food.<br />

The plant-based restaurant made<br />

the changes to improve the quality<br />

of its business by becoming certified<br />

by the Blue Umbrella program<br />

last year.<br />

The Blue Umbrella program is<br />

designed for businesses that want<br />

their service to be dementia-friendly.<br />

According to the Alzheimer Society<br />

of Durham Region, 10,000<br />

people loc<strong>all</strong>y have been diagnosed<br />

with a dementia-related illness.<br />

The Blue Umbrella symbol, often<br />

displayed on a door or window,<br />

lets customers know the staff are<br />

qualified to help those who have<br />

memory loss of other symptoms of<br />

dementia.<br />

More than 50 businesses in<br />

Whitby and Ajax are certified by<br />

the program. Businesses receive a<br />

one-hour training session from a<br />

trainer, who works alongside volunteers<br />

and a person with dementia<br />

to educate staff.<br />

The training includes a plan to<br />

be implemented by staff to cater to<br />

this group of customers.<br />

Trevor Paterson, general manager<br />

at Copper Branch, helped two<br />

customers with a dementia-related<br />

illness last summer.<br />

“One time, there was this older<br />

lady with her three daughters. One<br />

of the daughters was very familiar<br />

with the program since she saw the<br />

sticker on our front door,” he said.<br />

“She approached us about it and<br />

she wasn’t only excited but very<br />

appreciative when we gave her the<br />

menu right away and knew what<br />

she was talking about.”<br />

After training, someone from the<br />

organization acts as a customer to<br />

see how knowledgeable the business<br />

is about the Blue Umbrella<br />

program.<br />

“Once they pass, and once we<br />

know those changes have been<br />

made, the business can now say<br />

they are ‘dementia-friendly’,” said<br />

Christie May, director of philanthropy<br />

at Alzheimer Society of<br />

Durham Region. “We then give<br />

them a blue umbrella emblem to<br />

display in their store.”<br />

Photograph by Claudia Latino<br />

Christie May, focuses on fundraising programs through the Alzheimer's society in Brooklin.<br />

Paterson once had a customer<br />

ask him about the symbol.<br />

“I was working outside on the<br />

patio and this lady asked, ‘I see you<br />

have the blue umbrella sticker on<br />

your window. Do you mind telling<br />

me what that’s about?’” he said.<br />

A member from the Alzheimer<br />

Society of Durham Region emailed<br />

the restaurant a month later impressed<br />

with how much knowledge<br />

Paterson had about the program.<br />

May is thankful her community<br />

believes in this program.<br />

“We were so fortunate to have<br />

the support of the Town of Whitby<br />

who gave us $25,000 to ignite this<br />

Blue Umbrella movement in Whitby,”<br />

said May.<br />

“We also received $10,000 from<br />

the Town of Ajax to ignite the<br />

movement in Ajax.”<br />

May said dementia is an issue for<br />

many people.<br />

“Dementia is on the rise and it<br />

has been declared a ‘world epidemic’.<br />

Many would say if they haven’t<br />

had a situation first hand with Alzheimer’s<br />

‘Oh I don’t know anybody<br />

or that doesn’t affect me,” she said.<br />

“It does affect you. It would be<br />

hard-pressed to have a job or a role<br />

and not come cross that.”<br />

Paterson would like to see more<br />

businesses become part of the program<br />

to improve customer service<br />

skills and equality in his community.<br />

The Alzheimer Society of Durham<br />

Region’s goal is to expand the<br />

program beyond Whitby and Ajax.<br />

“It’s a simple thing we take for<br />

granted, as easy as going into a<br />

restaurant or reading off a menu<br />

that some people can’t do,” said<br />

Paterson.<br />

“This program is very unique<br />

and it does cater to a group that<br />

people don’t usu<strong>all</strong>y think about.<br />

I think people who have relatives<br />

who experience it re<strong>all</strong>y appreciate<br />

there’s a society out there who are<br />

dedicated to helping them.”<br />

Cleaning out<br />

the litter box<br />

Michael Bromby<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

If you live in Oshawa, you may<br />

have complained about feral cats<br />

running through your backyard.<br />

Linda Power is an animal activist<br />

in Oshawa who wants people to<br />

understand the homeless cats that<br />

may cause you grief are just trying<br />

to make it through the day.<br />

Power has lived in Oshawa for<br />

the past 12 years but grew up in<br />

Bancroft. As a child, she grew up<br />

with animals in her family home.<br />

The first animal she rescued was a<br />

cat named Fluffy.<br />

“As a kid, I rescued everything,”<br />

says Power with a smile.<br />

When she lived in Bancroft, she<br />

ran a dog rescue with her husband<br />

Jack. Over time, they slowly integrated<br />

cats. When she moved<br />

to Oshawa she began to focus on<br />

cats and how they were living in<br />

the city.<br />

“When we came to Oshawa we<br />

were very involved in cat rescue.<br />

Part of cat rescue is the trap, neuter,<br />

return, and manage program<br />

(TNRM),” says Power.<br />

In November, city council voted<br />

on a motion put forward by Oshawa<br />

Animal Services to have a<br />

TNRM program in Oshawa. The<br />

city approved a two-year pilot program<br />

which <strong>all</strong>ows animal services<br />

to trap and spay or neuter the cat.<br />

This local feral cat in Oshawa is part of a cat colony.<br />

The cats are then returned to a<br />

colony and volunteers from Action<br />

Volunteers for Animals (AVA)<br />

manage the colony providing food<br />

and water. Under the TNRM, a<br />

feral cat is defined as unsocial and<br />

possibly aggressive, while avoiding<br />

humans. The goal of the program<br />

is to reduce the number of feral<br />

cats. In 2016, Oshawa Animal<br />

Services received 16 complaints<br />

about feral cats and in 2015 it was<br />

30. AVA was running sm<strong>all</strong> cat<br />

colonies in the city.<br />

Each feral cat brought into Oshawa<br />

Animal Services from these<br />

complaints were spade, neutered<br />

and returned to the colony. The<br />

city gave $4,500 toward the pilot<br />

project for funding of volunteers.<br />

Mayor John Henry says the community<br />

volunteers are what keep<br />

the program running successfully.<br />

“The program has been working<br />

very well in Oshawa. It wouldn’t<br />

work if we didn’t have community<br />

participation,” he says.<br />

Henry says part of the feral cat<br />

problem comes from students at<br />

Durham College and UOIT. He<br />

says they get cats during the school<br />

year as pets, then release them before<br />

they go home.<br />

“If you had a cat don’t just release<br />

it and go back home, make<br />

sure that it’s properly looked after,”<br />

says Henry.<br />

Power says she has been advocating<br />

for the TNRM program to be<br />

implemented in Oshawa for years.<br />

She says it is needed because the<br />

public does not understand these<br />

cats are suffering.<br />

“They are starving, they are<br />

often injured, they freeze to death<br />

in the winter and they need help,”<br />

she says.<br />

Power has sent in letters to city<br />

council and has also attended city<br />

council meetings to voice her opinion.<br />

“At first, when I would go to<br />

council meetings or have a letter on<br />

the agenda they re<strong>all</strong>y didn’t like<br />

me too much,” says Power. “But<br />

they’ve changed a lot and they’re<br />

willing to recognize that volunteers<br />

have been solving a huge and expensive<br />

problem for them and those<br />

volunteers need support.”<br />

Power used to volunteer with<br />

AVA by fostering cats while attending<br />

to colonies. She doesn’t<br />

work with them anymore but she<br />

still visits three times a week to feed<br />

the cats with food she buys. She<br />

says it is expensive but with new<br />

funding the food should be donated<br />

to the colonies by the city or the<br />

people in the community.<br />

“Everybody wants to feed their<br />

cats but it’s usu<strong>all</strong>y a financial concern,”<br />

she says.<br />

Power visits the colonies every<br />

week to provide food for the feral<br />

cats, and clean up garbage around<br />

Photograph by Michael Bromby<br />

the shelters.<br />

She says the public is not always<br />

receptive towards her actions.<br />

“I have had my life threatened<br />

if I came back to feed the cats. I<br />

had people fight with me on the<br />

street because I was putting down<br />

cat food,” she says.<br />

Power has worked hard to keep<br />

the cats safe.<br />

She says the city will not disclose<br />

the locations of cat colonies<br />

to the public because of potential<br />

vandalism.<br />

“There are a lot of people who do<br />

not like cat colonies. If they know<br />

where they are often they will go<br />

and take the food away and destroy<br />

the shelters,” she says.


Campus chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 11<br />

Is porn the new drug?<br />

Kaatje Henrick<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

There are many different types of<br />

addiction: drugs, television, technology<br />

- and potenti<strong>all</strong>y, porn.<br />

Clay Olsen, the founder of Fight<br />

the New Drug, recently spoke to<br />

about a hundred students and<br />

guests at Durham College about<br />

porn addiction.<br />

“Porn is not a light topic and<br />

for some it is very difficult to talk<br />

about,” he says. “We want the topic<br />

to become something that people<br />

can have a conversation over without<br />

feeling judged.”<br />

Fight the New Drug is an organization<br />

started by Olsen, who<br />

is from Salt Lake City, Utah, and<br />

some of his colleagues from college.<br />

His cousin struggled with porn addiction<br />

which Olsen says led him to<br />

act out in violent ways.<br />

Olsen says his cousin was arrested<br />

and put in jail for a crime<br />

he committed due to his addiction.<br />

After his cousin was released, Olsen<br />

was curious about the research on<br />

this subject. “I saw him in a rough<br />

place.<br />

He didn’t know who to speak to<br />

and cut everybody off. He started<br />

to act out in violent ways by solving<br />

his problems with physical abuse,”<br />

says Olsen. “That’s when I knew<br />

something had to change.”<br />

His organization creates awareness<br />

among the public about pornography,<br />

and how it can have a<br />

Campus Church crew with Clay Olsen (centre) founder of Fight the New Drug.<br />

negative impact on society and a<br />

person’s over<strong>all</strong> health.<br />

According to Olsen, addiction to<br />

pornography harms in three ways:<br />

through the brain, the heart and<br />

everyday life.<br />

The brain is constantly gathering<br />

new information and molding. Addiction<br />

happens when people absorb<br />

information on a daily basis,<br />

and it becomes addictive because of<br />

the repetition, according to Olsen.<br />

“It’s a reward centre in our<br />

brain, the chemicals like dopamine<br />

are released and they make<br />

you feel good, they make you want<br />

to do it again,” says Olsen. Some<br />

people become physic<strong>all</strong>y or emotion<strong>all</strong>y<br />

dependent on the source of<br />

their addiction, says Carl Legault,<br />

a psychotherapist and professor at<br />

Durham College.<br />

“It may affect your life negatively,<br />

but it’s become such a compulsive<br />

action that you now depend on<br />

it. Your brain can no longer control<br />

its cravings to the source you’re addicted<br />

too,” says Legault.<br />

Often when people have an addiction<br />

it ruins relationships with<br />

friends and family. It can also take<br />

a toll on self-esteem and self-worth,<br />

according to Legault.<br />

He says the biggest impact is<br />

when someone lets the addiction<br />

consume them and they’re now<br />

dependant on it.<br />

When an addict becomes addicted<br />

to a certain thing, they may live<br />

their life according to their addiction.“Addicts<br />

need the substance<br />

that they’re addicted to in order<br />

to feel good, or able to live,” says<br />

Legault.<br />

Addiction to porn has been proven<br />

to often disrupt and ruin relationships,<br />

according to Olsen.<br />

He says the relationship’s intimacy<br />

is no longer satisfactory because<br />

the addict is now looking for<br />

something that sparks their interest<br />

Photograph by Kaatje Henrick<br />

more than pornography.<br />

He says in some cases, this may<br />

lead to acts of violence on the partner,<br />

or others.<br />

Nick Doyle is a pastor at Calvary<br />

Baptist Church in Oshawa<br />

who attended the event.<br />

“I have seen it ruin many lives, and<br />

I hate seeing people’s life consumed<br />

by it,” he says.<br />

Easy access to porn online is part<br />

of the ch<strong>all</strong>enge.<br />

“With porn being on the internet<br />

and the internet being so accessible,<br />

it almost exponenti<strong>all</strong>y increases<br />

the views of porn within people,”<br />

says Legault.<br />

UOIT's long night against procrastination<br />

Annual<br />

event helps<br />

to ease<br />

stress<br />

during<br />

mid-terms<br />

Alex Clelland<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Midterm season is here and students<br />

at UOIT are beginning to<br />

feel the stress and pressures of succeeding<br />

in school.<br />

During one of the busiest times of<br />

the school year, the Student Learning<br />

Centre in the library aims to<br />

help <strong>all</strong>eviate stress by putting on<br />

their third annual Long Night<br />

Against Procrastination (LNAP)<br />

event.<br />

The event took place on March 8<br />

in The Den of the campus library.<br />

It featured sessions on writing tips,<br />

offered food and prizes, yoga and<br />

meditation, and a chance to sit<br />

down with research librarians to<br />

go over assignments one-on-one.<br />

Many universities across Ontario<br />

also host the event, including the<br />

Waterloo, Laurentian, Trent, and<br />

Ryerson.<br />

The session also had tips for students<br />

who frequently pull <strong>all</strong>-nighters<br />

to complete school work, giving<br />

tips on how to effectively work into<br />

Students help out at the annual Long Night Against Procrastination.<br />

the late hours of the night.<br />

Krista Elliott is manager of the<br />

Student Learning Centre and says<br />

every student procrastinates.<br />

“A lot of us have a hard time sitting<br />

down and actu<strong>all</strong>y starting the<br />

work,” she says. When you have to<br />

write a paper, it’s easy to come up<br />

with any excuse to put it off.<br />

But to get yourself started, if you<br />

can commit to two minutes of work,<br />

it can be enough time to stay there<br />

and keep working.”<br />

Lindsay Smith was the event coordinator.<br />

When helping students fight<br />

procrastination, she says the worst<br />

distraction is social media.<br />

“We <strong>all</strong> have our favourite websites<br />

we like to visit when we’re<br />

bored,” Smith says.<br />

“Most students have a phone,<br />

and it’s so easy to pick it up and surf<br />

through social media like Facebook<br />

and Twitter.<br />

It’s a great idea to turn off your<br />

phone or the notifications when<br />

you’re trying to get work done.”<br />

Smith says her favourite tip came<br />

from a student she spoke with at<br />

the event about getting rid of his<br />

biggest distraction – his phone.<br />

“A student told me the best tip<br />

he ever discovered was locking his<br />

phone up in his car,” Smith says.<br />

“He would come to the library to<br />

do work, but would leave his phone<br />

behind so he didn’t have the temptation<br />

to go on it and get distracted,<br />

and I think that’s a great tip for students<br />

who find themselves on social<br />

media a lot.”<br />

Photograph by Alex Clelland<br />

Although the event focused on<br />

helping students to take initiative to<br />

get their assignments done, it was<br />

also a relaxing environment where<br />

students could take a break from<br />

the stressful library.<br />

Free food and coffee were offered<br />

to students and faculty, and<br />

there was a chance to sit down and<br />

chat with peers about how to fight<br />

putting off work. There will be another<br />

event held on March 26 at the<br />

UOIT downtown campus from 1<br />

p.m. until 6 p.m.


12 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Community<br />

Carving up<br />

fun in Whitby<br />

Crafts-people meet for<br />

annual woodcarving event<br />

John Cook<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

The meticulously crafted, highly<br />

detailed works on display in Whitby’s<br />

Heydenshore Pavilion last<br />

weekend <strong>all</strong> had one thing in common—they<br />

<strong>all</strong> started as hunks of<br />

ordinary wood.<br />

The Brooklin Woodcarvers hosted<br />

their <strong>28</strong>th annual woodcarving<br />

show and competition on March<br />

10, drawing a large crowd.<br />

Craftspeople from across Ontario,<br />

most belonging to a local<br />

association, gathered to show off<br />

their sculpting and share tips with<br />

fellow carvers.<br />

Visitors could check out a wide<br />

range of carving styles and techniques<br />

and chat with the artists.<br />

There were also tables selling tools<br />

and materials for woodworking.<br />

Pieces ranged from traditional<br />

bird carvings to intricate designs<br />

carved into bark and even<br />

crank-operated moving scenes<br />

involving colourful wooden caricatures.<br />

Calvin Perry, director at large of<br />

the Durham Woodworking Club,<br />

says he would encourage anyone to<br />

try woodworking, no matter what<br />

skill they possess.<br />

“It’s amazing,” says Perry. “Once<br />

you start carving you drive down<br />

the street and you see a tree trunk<br />

and right away you think of what<br />

you could make it into.”<br />

Perry has been carving since he<br />

was a teenager. He says it’s a skill<br />

that should be passed on from generation<br />

to generation, so he’d like<br />

to see more young people take up<br />

the craft.<br />

“We meet every Monday and<br />

we do some training for new members,”<br />

says Perry. “You can come<br />

out and try it out for free, and if you<br />

like it you can become a member.”<br />

Mark Sheridan, president of the<br />

Ontario Woodcarvers Association,<br />

says in Ontario there are about six<br />

shows each year. He was pleased<br />

with the turnout at the event this<br />

year.<br />

“We get some re<strong>all</strong>y good attendance<br />

at our shows,” says Sheridan.<br />

“The carvers move from show<br />

to show. We don’t mind moving<br />

across Ontario. You develop some<br />

nice friendships along the way.”<br />

For some, the highlight of the<br />

event was the competition where<br />

visitors vote on their favourite<br />

piece in novice, intermediate, and<br />

advanced skill groups.<br />

Sheridan’s says his preferred style<br />

of carving is caricature carving,<br />

which he describes as, “somewhat<br />

like a Norman Rockwell painting.”<br />

He pointed out a carving at<br />

the competition table of a drunken<br />

gambler cowboy as one of his favourite<br />

entrants.<br />

He and many others also took<br />

interest in an incredibly detailed<br />

carving into cotton bark, which<br />

reached a height close to that of a<br />

sm<strong>all</strong> child.<br />

The piece, which won first place<br />

in the bark carving category, was a<br />

representation of an eerie-looking<br />

church that contained many miniscule<br />

windows, doors and staircases.<br />

Ray Traynor, a member of the<br />

Brooklin Woodcarvers, says he uses<br />

woodcarving to relax and occupy<br />

his time after a motorcycle accident.<br />

Although he’s fairly new to<br />

the craft, he was showing off some<br />

of his pieces which combine metal<br />

and woodworking.<br />

“My dad was a carpenter by<br />

trade but I wasn’t much of a carpenter<br />

myself,” he said. “But I was<br />

always fascinated by Native art and<br />

carvings so I decided to try it out.<br />

And it’s been great.”<br />

The next show for woodcarving<br />

will be held March 16-18 in Waterloo.<br />

Sheridan says the shows are<br />

a great way for amateur carvers to<br />

get outside perspectives on their<br />

pieces by showing them off to the<br />

public.<br />

“It’s not just about getting your<br />

stuff out of the living room and<br />

showing it,” says Sheridan. “People<br />

see in your carvings things you<br />

wouldn’t have seen in them before.<br />

That’s the best part of these<br />

sessions.”<br />

Photographs by John Cook<br />

Carvings on display at the <strong>28</strong>th annual woodcarving show and competition by various artists.<br />

Refugee family expected to arrive in Stouffville<br />

Iraqi family<br />

close to<br />

passing<br />

immigration<br />

Kirsten Jerry<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

After two years, members of two<br />

Stouffvile churches think they are<br />

getting closer to bringing a refugee<br />

family of six from Iraq to York<br />

Region.<br />

The family from Mosul, Iraq,<br />

whose name cannot be used for security<br />

reasons, is expected to arrive<br />

in Canada this summer. Eastridge<br />

Evangelical Missionary Church<br />

and Springvale Baptist Church decided<br />

to sponsor the family through<br />

their Stouffville Help and Awareness<br />

for Refugees and the Exiled<br />

(SHARE) program. The family is<br />

currently in Jordan.<br />

Eastridge volunteer Conny<br />

Chubbuck, 37, is on a committee<br />

in charge of looking for leisure activities<br />

that the family would enjoy<br />

and find cultur<strong>all</strong>y acceptable.<br />

“The best part is that after many<br />

ups and downs… we are still expecting<br />

the same family,” says<br />

Chubbuck. “We’ve got to know a<br />

little bit about them and we care<br />

about them.”<br />

The family has a father, a<br />

mother, two older sons, a younger<br />

daughter and an aunt.<br />

“A lot of times when you sponsor<br />

a family you can’t help them<br />

until they actu<strong>all</strong>y arrive here,”<br />

Chubbuck says. The churches are<br />

able to help the family financi<strong>all</strong>y<br />

while they’re in Jordan, which is<br />

fortunate because the adults in the<br />

family are unable to work because<br />

they don’t have work visas.<br />

Before applying to be sponsors,<br />

Eastridge and Springvale each held<br />

Children were drowning in the<br />

Mediterranean.<br />

fundraisers because they needed<br />

to have the funds to support the<br />

family for a year, once they arrive,<br />

before the churches could apply to<br />

be community sponsors. Collectively,<br />

they raised about $67,000,<br />

Chubbuck says.<br />

Then, the family had to apply<br />

for refugee status, go through interviews<br />

with Canadian visa officers<br />

and will have to pass their security<br />

checks and health exams.<br />

However, there is no guarantee<br />

or firm date for when the family<br />

will be approved. She says the<br />

churches could get news of the<br />

family’s approval “anywhere from<br />

four weeks from now to who knows<br />

when.”<br />

Roughly 25 people from the two<br />

churches are involved in the process,<br />

says Chubbuck.<br />

Each person who will interact<br />

with the family has to complete an<br />

online Plan to Protect course by the<br />

end of March.<br />

Plan to Protect is an online company<br />

that provides organizations,<br />

like churches, with training courses<br />

that outline what to do and what<br />

not to do around vulnerable people,<br />

such as refugees.<br />

Chubbuck says she decided to<br />

volunteer two years ago as she followed<br />

the news during the Syrian<br />

refugee crisis. She rec<strong>all</strong>ed learning<br />

about refugees taking boats across<br />

the Mediterranean Sea to escape<br />

to Europe.<br />

“You would see that they were<br />

drowning, that children were<br />

drowning in the Mediteranean<br />

because they were just running for<br />

their lives,” Chubbuck says.<br />

“So, to me that’s just so horrific.<br />

Having young children myself, like,<br />

it’s just unimaginable that families<br />

have to go through that kind of<br />

life and have no place to go. So, it<br />

was very, very clear to my husband<br />

and me that we wanted to be a part<br />

of [the SHARE program] and do<br />

what we can.”


Campus chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 13<br />

DC business students reach finals<br />

Aly Beach<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

For the first time in history, Durham<br />

College made it to the finals<br />

of the Business Development Company<br />

(BDC) Case Ch<strong>all</strong>enge hosted<br />

at Vanier College in Montreal.<br />

Business admin and marketing<br />

program students Imina Edebiri,<br />

25, Justin Pantaleo, 21, Joel<br />

Budhl<strong>all</strong>, 21, Peter Abolarin, 23,<br />

made the top six in the first round<br />

of the competition of 24 post-secondary<br />

schools from across the<br />

country Feb. 10-11, with the help<br />

of their coaches and professors Sara<br />

Mercier and Sam Plati.<br />

The group placed fourth in the<br />

final round.<br />

“It was a very proud moment,”<br />

says Pantaleo.<br />

The competition was set up on a<br />

case-by-case basis per team. Each<br />

team was given a ‘case’, in which<br />

they must analyze the information,<br />

find the problem and come up with<br />

a recommendation, based on the<br />

company’s goals or objectives, on<br />

how to solve their business problem.<br />

The groups had three hours to<br />

analyze and solve the problem and<br />

put together a 20-minute presentation<br />

for the panel of judges.<br />

They did it without internet or<br />

smartphones.<br />

Due to the college faculty strike<br />

in first semester, the Durham group<br />

had less time to prepare. According<br />

to the group some students at other<br />

We wanted<br />

to bring the<br />

community of<br />

cross fitters<br />

together.<br />

schools said they had been practising<br />

for up to 10 months, while the<br />

DC group only had two weeks to<br />

prepare due to the delay in organizing<br />

because of the strike.<br />

“With the strike and everything,<br />

we re<strong>all</strong>y didn’t have time to prepare<br />

for this and schools from other<br />

provinces had been prepping since<br />

the start of the school year,” says<br />

Pantaleo.<br />

The first case they dealt with was<br />

a CrossFit gym that needed to attract<br />

more members. The DC team<br />

focused on digital innovation as the<br />

target audience was considered<br />

tech-savvy, according to Pantaleo.<br />

“We re<strong>all</strong>y wanted to target our<br />

advertisements more towards the<br />

digital side of things…so we did<br />

a social media campaign,” says<br />

Pantaleo.<br />

The group also wanted to create<br />

an annual event for cross fitters to<br />

attract attention.<br />

“We wanted to bring the community<br />

of cross fitters together.<br />

And to do that we wanted to hold<br />

like an annual competition that<br />

everyone could come to and participate<br />

in,” says Pantaleo.<br />

The group made it to the finals<br />

because they found a unique angle:<br />

the owner of the cross fit company.<br />

According to Budhl<strong>all</strong>, not many<br />

other teams focused on that.<br />

“What we were told what re<strong>all</strong>y<br />

set us apart and <strong>all</strong>owed us to go<br />

on to the finals was the fact that<br />

most teams were focusing strictly<br />

on the business side of marketing<br />

…but what we did differently from<br />

everyone else was we re<strong>all</strong>y highlighted<br />

the gym owner and his philanthropic<br />

messages,” says Budhl<strong>all</strong>.<br />

The second and final case they<br />

worked on in the competition involved<br />

an ‘emergency daycare’<br />

company that would go to companies<br />

and offer childcare services.<br />

Edebiri says in this case, the financial<br />

consideration of the case<br />

was their downf<strong>all</strong>.<br />

“The most important aspect of<br />

why we didn’t place top three was<br />

the financial aspect. We just did<br />

a little bit of budgeting… but we<br />

didn’t go in-depth on how we were<br />

going to utilize the money. They<br />

wanted more of the financial aspect,”<br />

says Edebiri.<br />

The team was disappointed that<br />

they didn’t finish in the top three,<br />

not just for themselves but for their<br />

coaches as well.<br />

“I won’t lie… after they c<strong>all</strong>ed the<br />

top three, I was re<strong>all</strong>y disappointed<br />

because like, ‘we are there, like,<br />

why can’t we just grab that’, and<br />

I wanted that so much for Sam,”<br />

says Edebiri.<br />

While the team was disappointed<br />

Courtesy of Sara Mercier<br />

Business admin and marketing program students (from left)<br />

Joel Budhl<strong>all</strong>, Justin Pantaleo, Imina Edebiri and Peter Abolarin<br />

at the Business Development Company Case Ch<strong>all</strong>enge.<br />

they didn’t place in the top three,<br />

they were happy for the opportunity<br />

to travel to Montreal and have<br />

the experience.<br />

“We’re very thankful to the<br />

school for providing the opportunity.<br />

They didn’t have to invite<br />

us…and we hope we did everyone<br />

proud,” says Pantaleo.


14 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus<br />

DC's fight against fake news<br />

How do we<br />

know it's<br />

not real?<br />

Aly Beach<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Fake news: it’s everywhere and it’s<br />

become an epidemic. So much so,<br />

Durham College (DC) has a general<br />

education course dedicated to<br />

fighting it.<br />

Valerie Lapp, professor in the<br />

School of Interdisciplinary Studies,<br />

teaches “The Real Truth About<br />

Fake News” a course dedicated to<br />

teaching students how to detect<br />

fake news. “With the advent of social<br />

media, with the fact that people<br />

are not just getting their news from<br />

a few trusted sources, that are just<br />

getting flooded with news, advertising,<br />

fake news, satire, opinion<br />

in just a big w<strong>all</strong> on the internet,<br />

that people are no longer are no<br />

longer able to decide what’s real<br />

and what’s fake,” says Lapp. The<br />

hybrid course specific<strong>all</strong>y focuses<br />

on how to spot fake news, stop the<br />

Valerie Lapp's top tips for finding fake news<br />

• Think critic<strong>all</strong>y<br />

• Ask yourself who is the author? What is their motive for writing the story?<br />

Have they written anything previously? What are their credentials?<br />

• Ask yourself is the website credible? Have they presented fake news before?<br />

• Do some research and double check any unclear information<br />

spread of it, find media bias while<br />

comparing bias to fake news, the<br />

role of personal bias in fake news<br />

detecting, how to find trustworthy<br />

sources and how fake news affects<br />

democracy. A hybrid course is a<br />

course divided between online and<br />

in-class.<br />

Lapp says she got the idea last<br />

year after she saw “<strong>all</strong> the crazy<br />

stuff happening after the 2016<br />

(U.S.) election,” She sat down<br />

with DC Journalism - Mass Media<br />

professor Teresa Goff to discuss<br />

possible course content. Goff and<br />

Journalism - Mass Media Program<br />

coordinator Brian Legree have also<br />

been guest speakers in the class.<br />

They educate students on the importance<br />

of local news.<br />

“For many of them, it’s quite an<br />

eye-opener,” says Lapp, “What<br />

Brian and Teresa did…. Was<br />

basic<strong>all</strong>y point out how you need<br />

to know what’s going on…around<br />

you loc<strong>all</strong>y and how could you find<br />

that out here at Durham College.”<br />

Lapp described the current news<br />

cycle pattern as a “fire hose of information.”<br />

The sheer amount of<br />

information people see every day<br />

can make it difficult to determine<br />

what is true and what is not, according<br />

to Lapp. She says a lot of<br />

people are simply not prepared to<br />

do the work to determine if they are<br />

reading fake news.<br />

“The consequences of not doing<br />

that work and not knowing what’s<br />

fake and what’s true are devastating,”<br />

says Lapp, “What I see, even<br />

in my students, is that I’ll show<br />

them two stories, one is from CBC<br />

the other is fake news and they’ll<br />

just say ‘it’s <strong>all</strong> crap.’ There is a tendency<br />

to just dismiss everything.”<br />

Lapp says this disengagement<br />

and fake news both have “devastating”<br />

effects on democracy, which<br />

is why she says everyone needs to<br />

fight the fake news epidemic. She<br />

says by dismissing <strong>all</strong> sources of<br />

information, people are not being<br />

informed on government activities<br />

or people in power.<br />

“The more people who feel they<br />

can’t trust the information, the<br />

more they disengage. And when<br />

you have disengaged people, you<br />

don’t have a functioning democracy,”<br />

says Lapp.<br />

Lapp says one of the main causes<br />

of fake news is mistakes made<br />

by news organizations in events of<br />

breaking news. Other causes are<br />

satire being taken seriously and<br />

true fake news containing a grain<br />

of truth. "Sometimes though, I do<br />

think that even the very best journalism<br />

outlets, the best journalists<br />

are under such terrible pressure<br />

with the 24/7 news cycle that they<br />

rush to get something out, and particularly<br />

when we see…breaking<br />

news of any kind, then <strong>all</strong> kinds<br />

of messes happen,” says Lapp. On<br />

April 19, Lapp will be hosting a<br />

“Fake News Summit” in the Global<br />

Classroom. Confirmed guests include<br />

Canada-based Buzzfeed<br />

media editor Craig Silverman.<br />

“He’s sort of made it his mission,<br />

and Buzzfeed has kind of given him<br />

this responsibility of uncovering<br />

fake news… he finds it and follows<br />

stories that expose rings of fake<br />

news propagators,” says Lapp.<br />

Lapp says even with spreading<br />

misinformation and distrust<br />

in the media, there is still a need<br />

for journalists. “The world needs<br />

well-trained, ethical journalists<br />

more than ever, and ones that are<br />

willing and able to report on the<br />

local news - that’s so important,”<br />

says Lapp.<br />

Simple or complex, any problem can be solved<br />

Campus<br />

service<br />

helps solve<br />

conflicts<br />

Cam Black-Araujo<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Someone not pulling their weight<br />

in a group project? Your roommate<br />

won’t clean up after himself? That’s<br />

where Campus Conflict Resolution<br />

Services (CCRS) comes in.<br />

CCRS provides free and confidential<br />

resolution services on<br />

campus, and will also try to help<br />

resolve conflicts. But some CCRS<br />

mediators say more people could<br />

take advantage of their services.<br />

Mediation student Charlotte<br />

Hand-Ross says their services are<br />

valuable but two things sometimes<br />

make it difficult for them to reach<br />

more students.<br />

She says not everyone knows<br />

CCRS exists because there are<br />

so many students on campus, and<br />

often times with a program like<br />

this, some people may worry about<br />

being judged.<br />

“I think it’s re<strong>all</strong>y beneficial to<br />

take advantage of our services because<br />

we are so willing to help,”<br />

says Hand-Ross. “Aside from what<br />

we can help you with at that specific<br />

time, we do provide you with<br />

great transferable skills moving<br />

forward.”<br />

These services are provided to<br />

anyone on campus who needs help<br />

with conflict, whether it’s group<br />

work, teammates and even relationship<br />

advice. In a session, the<br />

mediator helps identify key issues<br />

and assists with negotiating a mutu<strong>all</strong>y<br />

acceptable agreement, as<br />

well discussing how to implement<br />

that agreement.<br />

CCRS is a mandatory class as<br />

part of the Mediation-ADR course.<br />

Students meet each week to discuss<br />

and go over any conflicts they’ve<br />

dealt with or presentations they’ve<br />

given.<br />

The students discuss what went<br />

well and what strategies they used<br />

to help going forward in other situations.<br />

“It’s important for us do this, so<br />

we are staying consistent in our<br />

work and ensuring what we do is<br />

relevant and effective,” says Hand-<br />

Ross<br />

The mediation students provide<br />

help through mediation, but if both<br />

parties don’t want to take part, they<br />

will provide coaching and give advice<br />

to help with the situation for<br />

those willing to listen. They can<br />

provide services to students at<br />

either school on campus but cannot<br />

help with conflict between a<br />

student and professor. This is a<br />

grad-certificate program so many<br />

of the student mediators have already<br />

experienced these conflicts<br />

in college.<br />

Take advantage<br />

because we are<br />

so willing to<br />

help.<br />

CCRS supervisor and Mediation-ADR<br />

program coordinator,<br />

Dale Burt, says the program not<br />

only helps those looking for conflict<br />

resolution services, but also helps<br />

the students providing the service.<br />

“The program gives students real<br />

life, hands-on experience that will<br />

help them once they get into the<br />

field,” says Burt.<br />

People looking for assistance can<br />

get in touch with CCRS by e-mail<br />

on their Durham College website<br />

page. Burt then passes the inquiry<br />

on to the students who would volunteer<br />

to take on the task at hand.<br />

Hand-Ross says working alongside<br />

students to help solve conflicts,<br />

or even just giving them advice, has<br />

re<strong>all</strong>y helped her as a person and<br />

provided her with important experience<br />

heading forward.<br />

“I’ve developed a leadership role<br />

that I didn’t re<strong>all</strong>y know I had before,”<br />

explains Hand-Ross. “I’ve<br />

been able to express my creativity<br />

differently in this program.”


Campus chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 15<br />

'Do fabulous work' at school<br />

Tracy Wright<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

“Treat your days at school as if<br />

you are already at your job. The<br />

first day at school was your first job<br />

interview. Be punctual, sit upright<br />

and meet deadlines. Do fabulous<br />

work because it is in you. Be ready<br />

to embrace opportunities.” These<br />

words of advice were given by<br />

Durham College alumnus Manjula<br />

Selvarajah while speaking here<br />

for an Alumni in the Pit event Feb.<br />

6.<br />

Selvarajah is a graduate from<br />

Journalism - Print and Broadcast<br />

program in 2014.<br />

She was in technology before<br />

she became a journalist. She currently<br />

works at CBC Radio, often<br />

on Metro Morning with Matt G<strong>all</strong>oway.<br />

It was a c<strong>all</strong> to action which<br />

had her make the change to journalism.<br />

She rec<strong>all</strong>ed watching the<br />

news several years ago and seeing<br />

a cargo boat that had pulled into a<br />

B.C. harbour with Tamil refugees.<br />

“It was a strange moment for<br />

me. I remember thinking, what is<br />

going on? We have tons of people<br />

who show up on our borders every<br />

day and we give them the benefit<br />

of the doubt. I felt at that point<br />

the question of the benefit of the<br />

doubt happened because of racism.<br />

The coverage in the news made<br />

her realize that the newsrooms<br />

Photograph by Tracy Wright<br />

Manjula Selvarajah, a former journalism student at DC who enrolled in the program as a wife<br />

and mother, unsure of herself going in and is now a reporter for CBC Radio.<br />

across the country needed more<br />

representation.<br />

“The face of Canada is changing.<br />

It helps to have diversity,” says<br />

Selvarajah.<br />

When starting the journalism<br />

program, she did not know what<br />

to expect. She said she gave herself<br />

three months to determine if<br />

program was right for her.<br />

As a mature student mother<br />

and wife, she found the balance a<br />

little bit tough.<br />

But she said “the day-to-day<br />

pace prepares you for your regular<br />

day at work.”<br />

Selvarajah added she was grateful<br />

to her professors as they were<br />

instrumental instructors, preparing<br />

her for interviews with sources<br />

and ultimately, job interviews. She<br />

praised the late Gerry Rose who<br />

was the editor for <strong>Chronicle</strong> as he<br />

would sit down and give her different<br />

suggestions on stories..<br />

She had some great advice for<br />

journalism students.<br />

Selvarajah said reporters will<br />

talk to people at the worst and best<br />

moments of their lives. But she<br />

added she loves her work.<br />

Selvarajah, founder of Tamil<br />

Women Rising, an organization<br />

that empowers Tamil women to<br />

meet their goals and have a better<br />

future, concluded by saying “life is<br />

not fair to a lot of people. There<br />

will always be one with more money,<br />

more connections. The system<br />

has to change to fix the inequalities.<br />

The only solution to unfairness<br />

is grit and hard work.”


16 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus<br />

The future of<br />

captioning at DC<br />

DC's AI<br />

Hub is on<br />

the map<br />

Aly Beach<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Two Durham College students<br />

have developed a way to make<br />

closed caption services quicker and<br />

cheaper.<br />

Matthew Wierzbicki and Dillon<br />

Regimbal, both 20 and students in<br />

the computer programming analyst<br />

program, unveiled their project<br />

based in artificial intelligence<br />

(AI) at the Colleges and Institutes<br />

of Canada (CICan), ‘Accelerating<br />

Innovation Through Applied Research’<br />

showcase on Feb. 12-13 in<br />

Ottawa. CICan which acts a voice<br />

for publicly funded colleges.<br />

“It was a great way to show Durham<br />

College has the capabilities<br />

of using AI to make real-world effects,”<br />

says Wierzbicki.<br />

Artificial intelligence is defined<br />

as being intelligence demonstrated<br />

by machines, as opposed to intelligence<br />

shown by humans or animals.<br />

The software idea was conceived<br />

when it was identified that the college<br />

pays a third party for captioning<br />

services.<br />

“For the college, it <strong>all</strong>ows the<br />

professors to take a video and have<br />

it captioned much quicker than it<br />

currently is, which currently takes<br />

many months because it is done by<br />

a third party. So having that done<br />

in-house is better,” says Regimbal.<br />

The projected started with automatic<br />

word generation and Long<br />

Short Term Memory (LSTM). The<br />

two students essenti<strong>all</strong>y trained the<br />

program on a piece of work, so it<br />

could determine sentence structures,<br />

grammar and punctuation.<br />

They chose to train it with Shakespeare.<br />

“We were kind of teaching it how<br />

to make words and sentences and<br />

making it learn how to talk,” says<br />

Regimbal adding, “we fed it books<br />

and had it write <strong>pages</strong>.”<br />

The program works by taking<br />

the words people are saying, and it<br />

will train on certain words so it can<br />

“recognize the intonations and the<br />

sound files.”<br />

It will then recognize what certain<br />

words look like. From there, it<br />

will make an educated guess based<br />

on what it has heard before and output<br />

the words said.<br />

The project was presented at a<br />

showcase put on by CICan.<br />

At the showcase, colleges came<br />

and presented applied research<br />

projects.<br />

Policy updates and funding that<br />

would affect applied research was<br />

also discussed.<br />

Wierzbicki and Regimbal got to<br />

meet MPPS, other college students<br />

and Bardish Chagger, the Ontario<br />

Minister of Sm<strong>all</strong> Businesses.<br />

“It was pretty cool meeting <strong>all</strong> of<br />

these important people. It was a fun<br />

time,” says Wierzbicki.<br />

“Getting to talk to the students<br />

from <strong>all</strong> the other colleges and<br />

seeing how their projects are going.<br />

That was re<strong>all</strong>y good,” added<br />

Regimbal.<br />

The captioning project is part<br />

of DC’s AI Hub which works with<br />

ministry partners on research projects<br />

and works on internal projects<br />

for the school. The hub will be<br />

introducing workshops and seminars<br />

that teach about AI from the<br />

ground up.<br />

“The AI Hub is sort of a term the<br />

we coined here at Durham College<br />

that oversees or the umbrella term<br />

that goes over everything AI- related<br />

that is happening in the college,”<br />

says Amit Maraj, professor<br />

who oversees the AI Hub projects.<br />

According to Maraj, there are<br />

currently more than 60 students<br />

who are working or involved with<br />

AI Hub projects and around 12 researchers.<br />

“It was kind of like an intro. We<br />

were kind of like a test to see if AI<br />

would be feasible and it seems to be<br />

successful,” says Regimbal.<br />

Photograph by Aly Beach<br />

(Left to right) Computer programming analyst students Dillon Regimbal and Matthew<br />

Wierzbicki, both 20, participated in the CICan applied research showcase.


Community chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 17<br />

The historical terminal<br />

The land where we stand is the traditional<br />

territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island<br />

First Nation. Uncovering the hidden<br />

stories about the land our community is<br />

built on is what the <strong>Chronicle</strong>'s new feature<br />

series, the Land Where We Stand,<br />

is about.<br />

William McGinn<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

“People were used to shopping at<br />

areas where you had three checkout<br />

counters and here you’d have 30,”<br />

says Jim Olson, a former Oshawa<br />

high school principal. The meat<br />

counters of the Knob Hill Farms<br />

supermarkets were one of the most<br />

notable details. “On this counter<br />

that was the length of a footb<strong>all</strong><br />

field, you’d find full rabbits or the<br />

head of a pig.” Oshawa’s store had,<br />

according to Mary Bull of Oshawa<br />

Express, a 330-foot meat counter<br />

and 46 checkout registers.<br />

Steve Stavro created Knob<br />

Hill Farms, a former grocery store<br />

chain that used to be the biggest in<br />

Ontario, his ten warehouse chains<br />

each taking up tens of thousands<br />

of feet. It was the creation of the<br />

term “food terminal”, according<br />

to Nicolaas Van Rijn’s article on<br />

Knob Hill Farms from The Record.<br />

Oshawa’s Knob Hill Farms<br />

was located between Simcoe Street<br />

and Ritson Road. The abandoned<br />

building proves that even the businesses<br />

thousands of square feet big<br />

and thousands of customers are<br />

vulnerable to failing.<br />

Many Ontario residents still remember<br />

Knob Hill Farms: the lineups<br />

to get into the parking lot, the<br />

gigantic piles of produce and the<br />

mile-long set of registers. If it were<br />

still in business, its size would be<br />

comparable to Cost Co. The Oshawa<br />

store was 21,000 square feet. “It<br />

would draw people in from Bowmanville,<br />

Newcastle, Port Hope,<br />

even Peterborough,” said Keith<br />

Jones, a retired Geography high<br />

school teacher. “A grocery store<br />

could do that because they could<br />

stock up on these huge quantities.”<br />

Stavro, his brother Chris, and<br />

his father managed to open the first<br />

store under the name in 1953. By<br />

this time, Stavro had been working<br />

with his father in the retail business<br />

after dropping out of high school<br />

to do so. It was a sm<strong>all</strong> fruit store<br />

in Markham. By 1954, Stavro was<br />

operating the first Knob Hill Farms<br />

supermarket on Danforth Avenue.<br />

By the late 50’s, he had nine stores<br />

across Toronto. Then he put the<br />

sm<strong>all</strong>er stores to rest in 1962 to<br />

build the first Knob Hill Farms<br />

food terminal at Woodbine Avenue<br />

and Highway 7 in Markham, the<br />

biggest grocery store in the country.<br />

He basic<strong>all</strong>y<br />

invented the<br />

warehouse<br />

store format in<br />

Canada and for<br />

a long time had<br />

the market to<br />

himself, but he<br />

got stuck, frozen<br />

in time.<br />

As the years went by, he expanded<br />

it to nine more “food terminals” in<br />

total.<br />

It was an unconventional business.<br />

Stavro wanted to cut down on<br />

frills as much as possible, like packaging<br />

and selling several different<br />

brands of the same food. He also<br />

did his best to buy produce straight<br />

from the farmers. The result was<br />

a store that, in Oshawa’s branch<br />

alone, would ship 2,500 watermelons<br />

and have them <strong>all</strong> bought in<br />

three days.<br />

According to Keith Jones, an Oshawa<br />

resident who brought a group<br />

of Indigenous youth to Knob Hills<br />

on a field trip, Steve Stavro had a<br />

motto of “Bulk Buying, Bulk Selling”.<br />

Jones says it was “like warehouse<br />

distribution, like the Costco<br />

model, buying in quantities, selling<br />

in quantities.”<br />

Knob Hill didn’t use today’s<br />

plastic bags in checkout. Portions<br />

made them too impractical. Knob<br />

Hill used reusable and take-home<br />

cardboard and plastic baskets,<br />

which had eco-friendly limited-tono<br />

packaging, and were beneficial<br />

to the quantities.<br />

“Knob Hill introduced basket<br />

shopping, so you’d put <strong>all</strong> your<br />

items in baskets and then when you<br />

went to the checkout, they’d take it<br />

out of the basket, transfer, and then<br />

take the basket home. Basic<strong>all</strong>y, that<br />

was the start of reusable shopping,”<br />

said Olson, who was at Oshawa’s<br />

Knob Hill Farms opening in 1983.<br />

Before its closure, there were a<br />

total of ten warehouse-style stores<br />

employing about 800 people. That’s<br />

80 employees per store. In 1991,<br />

Stavro’s chain was at the peak of<br />

its success, sharing more than 3 per<br />

cent of the Ontario market. But it<br />

had to close.<br />

Its closure stemmed from Stavro’s<br />

other line of work. He became<br />

the owner of the Toronto Maple<br />

Leafs hockey team themselves in<br />

1990.<br />

During that time, grocery stores<br />

were beginning to catch up to the<br />

large scale of shopping Knob Hill<br />

Farms put in place, such as Cost<br />

Co and Loblaws, but Stavro was<br />

unable to keep the required attention<br />

on his enterprise, remaining<br />

CEO while working closely with<br />

the hockey team.<br />

Not only that, but Stavro did not<br />

want to be subject to change. These<br />

stores had, during an age where<br />

power shopping and supermarkets<br />

were supersizing, no scanners at the<br />

check-outs. Not only that, but competitors<br />

added bar code reachers<br />

and scales at cash registers.<br />

“We don't need a computer log<br />

to tell us when to order goods from<br />

a central depot,” said Stavro in<br />

1983. “Everything's on the floor. All<br />

we have to do is look at the shelves<br />

to determine how much new stock<br />

we need.”<br />

Combined, those two problems<br />

presented a gradual decline in customers,<br />

from $500,000,000 annu<strong>all</strong>y<br />

to half that, and it ended up<br />

earning less money compared to its<br />

new competitors.<br />

"He basic<strong>all</strong>y invented the warehouse<br />

store format in Canada and<br />

for a long time had the market to<br />

Photograph by William McGinn<br />

To the left is Oshawa's Knob Hill Farms terminal, abandoned since 2001. To the right is before<br />

the building opened to the grocery store in 1983, when it was an iron foundry.<br />

himself," says Richard Talbot, a<br />

retail consultant, according to an<br />

article from the National Post. "But<br />

he got stuck, frozen in time and unable<br />

to change when change was <strong>all</strong><br />

around in an incredibly competitive<br />

sector." As a result, Stavro decided<br />

to close the properties.<br />

He did not take the closing of<br />

his business with dismissal. His business<br />

began on his own terms and<br />

was a part of most of his life. “This<br />

is a very difficult personal and business<br />

decision,” Stavro wrote to his<br />

employees, suppliers and customers<br />

in 2000. “Knob Hill Farms has<br />

been a large part of my life. It is the<br />

foundation of everything for my<br />

family. But times have changed. I<br />

have decided, regretfully, this is the<br />

right time to close the doors at our<br />

grocery outlets.”<br />

Stavro closed the stores on Sept<br />

30. He passed away six years later.<br />

What makes Oshawa’s 21,000<br />

square-metre store different from<br />

the other nine is that since its closure,<br />

the building itself has remained<br />

standing empty.<br />

The others have turned into appliance<br />

stores and grocery stores.<br />

In 2000, a liquidation centre and a<br />

flea market opened in the Oshawa<br />

terminal, which didn’t account for<br />

the entire building, and a year later,<br />

both businesses left the building.<br />

This is the only building of the<br />

ten to remain waiting for a new occupant.<br />

Today the building is fenced off,<br />

but not fenced off tight enough to<br />

keep out vandals. There are weeds<br />

and trees growing around the fences<br />

and through cracks in a parking<br />

lot that used to be able to hold<br />

hundreds of cars. The windows are<br />

boarded up with wood and there’s a<br />

lot of chipped paint. However, the<br />

individual letters spelling “TER-<br />

MINAL” for the delivery trucks<br />

and the main logo are still held up.<br />

The logo even looks still in mint<br />

condition.<br />

It is also expected to fin<strong>all</strong>y have<br />

another business under its roof. In<br />

2014, Metrolinx was able to earn<br />

the rights to utilize the property. It<br />

is expected to be constructed into<br />

one of four new Oshawa GO train<br />

stations by at least 2024.<br />

“You’re gonna see a cycle track,<br />

and those paths, one of which goes<br />

up near Durham College, those<br />

paths are gonna be very significant<br />

movers of people, like students in<br />

multi-transportation. That whole<br />

area is going to change very soon,”<br />

said Jones.<br />

Knob Hill Farms was known<br />

as the biggest grocery store in Ontario,<br />

one of which was “the largest<br />

in the world” and yet the company<br />

met a downf<strong>all</strong>. Message: Pay attention<br />

to your company, and in<br />

the economy, anything can end up<br />

bankrupt. “As I end this chapter of<br />

my life,” Stavro’s letter concluded<br />

with, “I would also like to thank<br />

a wonderful country that made it<br />

possible for an immigrant kid from<br />

the east end of Toronto to realize<br />

his dreams.”<br />

Follow us @DCUOIT<strong>Chronicle</strong> and<br />

use #landwherewestand to join the conversation,<br />

ask questions or send us more<br />

information.


18 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> Community<br />

The long<br />

battle of the<br />

Pickering<br />

Lands<br />

The land where we stand is the traditional<br />

territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog<br />

Island First Nation. Uncovering the hidden<br />

stories about the land our community<br />

is built on is what the <strong>Chronicle</strong>'s new<br />

feature series, the Land Where We Stand,<br />

is about.<br />

Kirsten Jerry<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

“We’ve lived here on the federal<br />

lands since 1980,” said Mary<br />

Delaney, describing how she came<br />

to be involved with advocacy group<br />

Land over Landings (LOL), which<br />

she chairs, “so I raised my family<br />

here and we turned what was a<br />

rundown farmhouse into a lovely<br />

home.”<br />

Delany is one of many people living<br />

on what is commonly known as<br />

the airport lands, or simply The<br />

Lands.<br />

Feeling the need to build an<br />

airport to relieve congestion in<br />

Toronto, the government did a<br />

survey of the Pickering area lands<br />

over a seventy-two-hour period in<br />

Jan. 1972, according to The Paper<br />

Juggernaut: Big Government Gone Mad<br />

by Walter Stewart.<br />

On Feb. 1, the Cabinet Committee<br />

of Government Operations<br />

accepted the proposal to build in<br />

Pickering. By Feb. 7, the whole<br />

Cabinet accepted.<br />

The Lands were expropriated by<br />

the government on March 2, 1972<br />

for the airport. On the same day,<br />

a protest group, People Or Planes<br />

(POP), was created.<br />

A note made by POP secretary<br />

Pat McClennan on page 37 of The<br />

Paper Juggernaut recounts the effects<br />

of the expropriation on people living<br />

on the lands: “… Another time<br />

a woman c<strong>all</strong>ed and said, ‘Well,<br />

they’ve won; my husband had a<br />

heart attack today.’ ”<br />

According to the book The Village<br />

of Brougham: Past! Present! Future?<br />

by Robert A. Miller, the people of<br />

A sign in a field protesting the building of an airport on the Pickering Lands.<br />

Brougham, a community in the<br />

northern part of Pickering, reacted<br />

by holding a protest meeting, which<br />

turned into POP.<br />

The Lands are located in the<br />

“ideal” position for a new Toronto<br />

airport, according to page 203 of<br />

The Paper Juggernaut, which is why<br />

they were chosen but not everyone<br />

wants an airport built.<br />

Those against the airport are<br />

fighting for food production, soil<br />

and conservation of The Lands.<br />

All of the goods produced in<br />

the Lands before expropriation<br />

included 4 million g<strong>all</strong>ons of milk,<br />

200,000 eggs, more than 1 million<br />

pounds of beef, 375,000 pounds of<br />

pork, 30,000 chickens, and 45,000<br />

bushels of wheat, according to page<br />

9 of The Paper Juggernaut.<br />

The Lands are also full of class<br />

one soil. Class one soil, when managed<br />

well, has almost no limitations<br />

for the number of crops that can<br />

be grown in it. The soil holds in<br />

moisture well, and can be used to<br />

grow many types of crops.<br />

For these reasons, Land over<br />

Landings fights to protect The<br />

Lands.<br />

“We changed the name of the<br />

advocacy group from People or<br />

Planes, which was very much a protest<br />

group, to Land Over Landings,<br />

which is <strong>all</strong> about advocating for<br />

something,” Delaney said.<br />

LOL has 12 people in unpaid<br />

executive positions, some of which<br />

are held by original members of<br />

POP, and its many supporters include<br />

up to 14,000 supporters on its<br />

mailing list and 2.6 thousand likes<br />

and followers on Facebook.<br />

In an interview at her home,<br />

Delaney said Brougham Recreation<br />

society, Voters Organized<br />

to Cancel the Airport Lands<br />

(VOCAL), and what was left of<br />

People Or Planes gathered in 2005.<br />

“We realized we needed to work<br />

together… so we got together.”<br />

Land Over Landings got a sizable<br />

push in membership in 2013<br />

after the creation of the Rouge National<br />

Urban Park was announced<br />

by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty<br />

and the Harper government. The<br />

government had every intention<br />

to actu<strong>all</strong>y build the Pickering<br />

airport.<br />

Over half of the original Lands<br />

are now part of the Rouge National<br />

Urban Park, which covers roughly<br />

79.1 square kilometers.<br />

“That’s when our new executive<br />

was formed and that’s when we<br />

realized we needed to be a much<br />

more official body,” according to<br />

Delaney, who went on to say the<br />

city council often seems to fight<br />

against them.<br />

“The leading economic driver<br />

is agriculture in Ontario and yet<br />

they [city council] keep advocating<br />

for an airport that in almost half<br />

a century has never been proven<br />

to be needed. If it were needed, it<br />

would be here.”<br />

Since expropriation, Transport<br />

Canada became the landlord of<br />

the airport lands. This does not<br />

include the sections of land now in<br />

the Urban Park.<br />

Media Relations Advisor, Julie<br />

Leroux, for Transport Canada,<br />

wrote in an email correspondence,<br />

“The Government of Canada is<br />

taking a balanced approach to<br />

the management of the Pickering<br />

Lands, ensuring environmental,<br />

community and economic demands<br />

are being met.”<br />

Lands were handed over by<br />

Transport Canada to the Rouge<br />

National Urban Park twice. Once<br />

in 2015, then in 2017.<br />

Parks Canada is the landlord of<br />

<strong>all</strong> of Rouge Urban National Park.<br />

Parks Canada works closely with<br />

10 Indigenous peoples, including<br />

the Mississaugas of Scugog Island<br />

First Nations. The land has a diverse<br />

Indigenous history.<br />

Parks Canada’s Communications<br />

and Public Relations Officer, Jeffrey<br />

Sinibaldi, wrote in an email,<br />

“This partnership was formalized<br />

in 2012 with the creation of the<br />

Rouge National Urban Park First<br />

Nations Advisory Circle, which is<br />

comprised of representatives from<br />

these 10 First Nations with an expressed<br />

interest, and historic and<br />

cultural connection to the area of<br />

the national urban park.”<br />

The email continues to list Markham,<br />

Pickering, Toronto, and Uxbridge<br />

as housing Park land and<br />

says “these lands will be protected<br />

forever.”<br />

Julie Leroux is Transport Canada’s<br />

Media Relations Advisor.<br />

Transport Canada is still looking<br />

into the possibility of building the<br />

airport.<br />

In a recent email, Leroux wrote,<br />

“A study based on 2010 data predicted<br />

that an airport would be<br />

needed between 2027 and 2037.<br />

That data needs to be updated.”<br />

To update the information, Leroux<br />

says, “Transport Canada has<br />

initiated an aviation sector analysis<br />

to obtain updated data on aviation<br />

demand and capacity.”<br />

The analysis would look into<br />

information on the future needs<br />

of Southern Ontario’s air traffic,<br />

Photograph by Kirsten Jerry<br />

including passengers, and cargo,<br />

which type of airport would be best<br />

for the area, how the airport would<br />

affect the environment and how it<br />

would make money.<br />

This analysis is expected to be<br />

completed sometime next year.<br />

Transport Canada currently<br />

holds 8,700 acres, while about<br />

10,000 acres are in the Rouge National<br />

Urban Park.<br />

While some of The Lands have<br />

been moved into the Park, the rest<br />

are still being debated over.<br />

Some say an airport is the better<br />

choice, while others, like LOL, say<br />

the lands should be left for farming<br />

use.<br />

“Re<strong>all</strong>y,” Delaney said about<br />

LOL, “what we’re advocating for<br />

is the protection of the land itself,<br />

because these are class one soils,<br />

the best in the world, next to the<br />

largest market in Canada, and now<br />

the Rouge National Urban Park.”<br />

On the other hand, Leroux<br />

wrote, “The Government of Canada<br />

will continue to engage directly<br />

with business, community and government<br />

stakeholders on the Pickering<br />

Lands as work progresses to<br />

determine the need and business<br />

case for the development of the<br />

Pickering Lands.”<br />

The 46-year-old story of The<br />

Pickering Lands is not over. The<br />

debate between farming and development<br />

continues to this day.<br />

Follow us @DCUOIT<strong>Chronicle</strong> and<br />

use #landwherewestand to join the conversation,<br />

ask questions or send us more<br />

information.


Community chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 19<br />

55 rooms of history at Parkwood Estate<br />

The land where we stand is the traditional<br />

territory of the Mississauga's of<br />

Scugog Island First Nation. Uncovering<br />

the hidden stories about the land our community<br />

is built on is what the <strong>Chronicle</strong>'s<br />

new feature stories, the Land Where We<br />

Stand, is about.<br />

Kaatje Henrick<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

“Our morning routine would be<br />

to go to the garden and pick the<br />

strawberries for Mr. McLaughlin’s<br />

breakfast,” says Brian Keys, 73,<br />

the kitchen gardener who worked<br />

at Parkwood in the 1960’s.<br />

Parkwood Estate has been a National<br />

Historic Site since 1989. The<br />

55-room mansion was built on 12<br />

acres in 1917. Col. Sam McLaughlin<br />

and his wife, Adelaide Mowbray<br />

bought Prospect park which used to<br />

exist where the estate now stands.<br />

Parkwood Estate was not just a<br />

home for the McLaughlin’s and<br />

their five daughters, it also contributed<br />

to the Second World War.<br />

Tours of the McLaughlin home are<br />

open to the public.<br />

“Mr. McLaughlin would usu<strong>all</strong>y<br />

take the stairs down in the morning,<br />

but being 90 at the time, he would<br />

take the elevator,” says Samantha<br />

George, curator of Parkwood, National<br />

Historic Site.<br />

The McLaughlin home tour starts<br />

with the self-supporting staircase in<br />

the front h<strong>all</strong> which was made from<br />

steel in 1917. The carpet on the old<br />

squeaky wood floor is a one of a kind<br />

from Scotland.<br />

“The elevator in the main h<strong>all</strong><br />

was used up until Col. McLaughlin’s<br />

death in 1972,” says tour guide,<br />

Elizabeth Glenney. She is one of the<br />

150 volunteers who take the public<br />

on tours.<br />

“One of the most famous rooms<br />

used in the McLaughlin’s home is<br />

the billiard room,” says Glenney,<br />

who has volunteered for seven years.<br />

The billiard room has paintings<br />

of <strong>all</strong> sports McLaughlin took part<br />

in including, swimming, croquet,<br />

snow shoeing, canoeing, soccer and<br />

horse racing. The billiard room is<br />

also famous for gatherings of the<br />

officers from Camp X.<br />

Camp X was created in 1941,<br />

it was a special training school for<br />

agents who were involved in the<br />

Second World War. Before the war<br />

began, supplies and recourses needed<br />

to be collected for the military.<br />

The war effort was a way of raising<br />

those things needed.<br />

In 1939, Elizabeth and father<br />

King George were on their royal<br />

tour of Canada and the United<br />

States to bring attention to the war<br />

effort.<br />

Col. McLaughlin’s is also known<br />

for the McLaughlin Car Company,<br />

a family business of creating vehicles.<br />

The company also supported the<br />

war effort by making a car specific<strong>all</strong>y<br />

for the royal family’s arrival<br />

and tour, as well as giving families<br />

a place to stay.<br />

Many other guests frequented<br />

Parkwood. One person was Col.<br />

William Eric Phillips who later<br />

married one of the McLaughlin’s<br />

daughters.<br />

Col. William Phillips also started<br />

Research Enterprises Ltd, which<br />

was a building in Toronto that made<br />

espionage tools for the war.<br />

“Lipstick cameras, lipstick knives,<br />

and even bicycles that turned into<br />

suitcases,” says George, who has<br />

now spent 17 years learning about<br />

the history of Parkwood.<br />

One of the McLaughlin’s neighbours<br />

was William Stevenson, the<br />

creator of Camp X.<br />

Every Sunday night, the officers<br />

of Camp X would come to Parkwood<br />

to discuss future plans and<br />

play some pool.<br />

“If only the pool cues could come<br />

alive and tell me what was discussed<br />

over brandy and pool,” says George.<br />

“Col. McLaughlin was doing<br />

everything he could before the war<br />

started,” says George, who dedicates<br />

her life to Parkwood.<br />

Col. McLaughlin’s company also<br />

supplied the war with mosquito<br />

bombers, which is an aircraft that<br />

sits a pilot and passenger, often used<br />

in World War 2. Adelaide, Col.<br />

McLaughlins wife, loved to throw<br />

parties and fundraisers for the war<br />

effort at Parkwood.<br />

“The McLaughlin’s would have<br />

an annual tea fundraiser where a<br />

hat or shoe would be passed around<br />

and people would give money for<br />

the sailors who went to war,” says<br />

George.<br />

Six men who served Col. Mc-<br />

Laughlin and his family from<br />

1930-1940 were sent off to fight<br />

in the Second World War. All six<br />

men returned and were greeted with<br />

thanks.<br />

“Sam McLaughlin gave <strong>all</strong><br />

six men that returned, a key to a<br />

brand-new house for them and their<br />

families which to this day are still<br />

standing,” says George.<br />

Col. McLaughlin was also involved<br />

in the Ontario Regiment<br />

located in Oshawa. In 1921, Col.<br />

McLaughlin became the president<br />

of the Ontario Regiment. Which<br />

helped him become the producer<br />

of a film. Produced in 1941, There<br />

Too Go I is about the support from<br />

women and children in Canada<br />

during the war time. The film was<br />

played loc<strong>all</strong>y in late 1941 in Oshawa<br />

and <strong>all</strong> earnings were put towards<br />

the war effort.<br />

After the war ended in 1945.<br />

Shortly after, Adelaide, the wife of<br />

Col. McLaughlin fell ill and passed<br />

in 1958.<br />

“After the death of his wife, Col.<br />

McLaughlin had then realized he<br />

was getting old and decided to write<br />

a will,” says George.<br />

She says the hospital contributed<br />

to Parkwood and helped Adelaide<br />

quite a bit in the end, and in return,<br />

Sam left Parkwood Estate to the<br />

hospital.<br />

In 1960, the hospital had plans to<br />

turn Parkwood into the new Cancer<br />

centre, but Col. McLaughlin<br />

out lived his will. Col. McLaughlin<br />

passed in 1972 at the age of 101.<br />

The hospital was still trying to<br />

turn Parkwood into a Cancer centre<br />

but was unsuccessful because of<br />

Heritage Oshawa.<br />

Heritage Oshawa owned Parkwood<br />

until the late 1980’s.<br />

The National Historic Site company<br />

then bought it and made it<br />

official. Marking Parkwood with<br />

the title of National Historic Site,<br />

it became a place where the public<br />

could come tour the 55-room mansion,<br />

home to Col. McLaughlin who<br />

created General Motors.<br />

“We’re not owned by Parks Canada,<br />

so we don’t have a big boss we<br />

can go to and ask for money, so we<br />

have to earn it <strong>all</strong> ourselves by fundraising<br />

and throwing events,” says<br />

Photograph by Kaatje Henrick<br />

Parkwood is a mansion in Oshawa. Built in 1917, it is still open today and offers tours to those<br />

who are interested in Oshawa's history.<br />

George.<br />

To this day, Parkwood is still being<br />

used for film making.<br />

“Since 1980, I bet there’s been<br />

over 500 different films, not just<br />

movies but TV shows as well,” says<br />

George.<br />

Popular films like X-men and<br />

Billy Madison and TV shows like<br />

Bomb girls and Anne of Green<br />

Gables have been filmed at Parkwood.<br />

Actress Anna Kendrick stars in<br />

the new role as ‘Anne’ in Anne of<br />

Green Gables, filming took place<br />

this past summer at Parkwood.<br />

The tours that take place in Parkwood<br />

are another way the Estate<br />

earns money.<br />

With 11 gardens, an indoor pool,<br />

along with a bowling <strong>all</strong>ey is just a<br />

couple of things that make Parkwood<br />

special.<br />

The smell of antiques and dust<br />

will tickle your senses. The original<br />

furniture was from the 1930’s.<br />

The carpet flown in from Scotland<br />

is also an original.<br />

Tourists like Jane Elliot and her<br />

husband Tom who are from Edmonton,<br />

Alberta are one reason<br />

Parkwood is still functioning today.<br />

“We came here to visit my sister<br />

who’s always lived in Oshawa, she<br />

told us about this place and how old<br />

it was and we were so intrigued we<br />

just had to come see it for ourselves,"<br />

says Elliot.<br />

Follow us @DCUOIT<strong>Chronicle</strong> and<br />

use #landwherewestand to join the conversation,<br />

ask questions or send us more<br />

information.


20 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Community<br />

The history<br />

of the water:<br />

Lake Scugog<br />

The land where we stand is the traditional<br />

territory of the Mississaugas of<br />

Scugog Island First Nation. Uncovering<br />

the hidden stories about the land<br />

our community is built on is what the<br />

<strong>Chronicle</strong>'s new feature series, the Land<br />

Where We Stand, is about.<br />

Cassidy McMullen<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Scugog Island is located 20 minutes<br />

away from Durham College’s<br />

Oshawa campus, but while we can<br />

drink the water that comes out of<br />

our taps, the Mississaugas of Scugog<br />

Island First Nation, cannot.<br />

“There shouldn’t be more than<br />

one standard of water for people to<br />

drinking,” Desmond Versammy,<br />

Over<strong>all</strong> Responsible Operator<br />

(ORO) for the Water Supply System<br />

on the reserve, says. “People<br />

are people.”<br />

There are 81 long-term water<br />

advisories in Canada currently<br />

according to the Indigenous<br />

and Northern Affairs Canada<br />

(INAC- which is being renamed<br />

to Indigenous Services Canada).<br />

Others quote this number higher<br />

at 153 water advisories, keeping<br />

in mind that many of these places<br />

have multiple advisories and<br />

short-term advisories.<br />

Scugog has 4 long-term drinking<br />

water advisories.<br />

The federal government is investing<br />

$4.3 million dollars to end<br />

the years of drinking water advisories.<br />

With this money, along<br />

$2.3 million being contributed by<br />

the Mississaugas of Scugog Island<br />

First Nation and an additional<br />

$4.6 million from the Sm<strong>all</strong> Communities<br />

Funds, the Scugog Island<br />

reserve will be getting a water<br />

treatment plant.<br />

In total, the water treatment<br />

plant is an $11.2 million project.<br />

“They require a significant<br />

amount of money,” Versammy<br />

says. Went to school for engineering<br />

and has spent his career consulting<br />

on similar water management<br />

projects including water<br />

treatment, distribution and waste<br />

removal. He has more than 30<br />

years of experience in his field.<br />

Versammy was brought on in<br />

2014 as ORO for the water supply<br />

system on the reserve to help<br />

resolve the water issues on the reserve.<br />

For ten years, the reserve has<br />

been gripped by a drinking water<br />

advisories. Most of the homes are<br />

on well water with 15 homes on<br />

sm<strong>all</strong>er water treatment sheds.<br />

Even houses on the water treatment<br />

sheds are on the drinking<br />

water advisory.<br />

To better understand the issues<br />

surrounding the water around<br />

Scugog, it’s essential to look back<br />

in time.<br />

Back in the 1700’s, The Mississauga’s<br />

First Nations lived on the<br />

shores of Scugog Island. There<br />

were two rivers that branched off<br />

around the island and a sm<strong>all</strong>,<br />

sh<strong>all</strong>ow lake. The lake was so<br />

sm<strong>all</strong> and sh<strong>all</strong>ow that on early<br />

maps of the area it was left out<br />

complete.<br />

From the sh<strong>all</strong>ow waters, the<br />

Mississaugas harvested wild rice<br />

and the land around was good for<br />

living. Along with the wild rice,<br />

there was a cranberry patch and<br />

lots of wetland vegetation. There<br />

is evidence that large number of<br />

deer populated the area making it<br />

ideal for hunting.<br />

It wasn’t until the 1800’s that<br />

those things changed.<br />

Settlers came and drove the<br />

Mississaugas off to turn the land<br />

into farmland. Farming was good<br />

on the shore until a dam was built.<br />

The Purdy dam, named after<br />

the brothers who had it built, had<br />

no lock gates so there was no way<br />

to control the water flow which<br />

raised the water level to four feet.<br />

William Purdy described the<br />

area before the dam in Scugog<br />

and its Environs.<br />

“It was a mass of marsh and<br />

grass, the only clear water being<br />

that in the channel followed by the<br />

scow.”<br />

A scow is a type of boat they<br />

would have used as transportation<br />

on Lake Scugog.<br />

While this was perfect for the<br />

people in Lindsay where the dam<br />

was built, it caused havoc on the<br />

local eco-system.<br />

In 1927, F. G. Weir, the author<br />

of Scugog and its Environs,<br />

wrote, “The large tamarac forest<br />

that stood at the south of Scugog<br />

Island, said to have been at one<br />

time, a place of frequented by<br />

herds of deer, was killed off, exposing<br />

the marshy swamp as it<br />

appears today.”.<br />

Unfortunately, for the people<br />

living around the lake, that meant<br />

Lake Scugog from the Scugog causeway.<br />

their properties were submerged<br />

and the stagnant water caused illness.<br />

A North American version of<br />

malaria spread by the mosquitoes<br />

that thrived on change in water<br />

and typhoid fever, caused by<br />

drinking contaminated water, was<br />

ripping through households.<br />

In 1934, Samuel Farmer, the<br />

author of On the Shores of Scugog,<br />

wrote, “There was scarcely a<br />

home that did not have its case of<br />

typhoid fever, malarial fever and<br />

argue.”<br />

Fin<strong>all</strong>y, enough was enough<br />

for the locals. In 1841, A group of<br />

young men decided to head over<br />

to Lindsay and take down the<br />

dam themselves after petitioning<br />

the government was getting them<br />

nowhere.<br />

“Needless to say it was not the<br />

Lindsay delegation that lowered<br />

the dam,” Farmer wrote, “that<br />

was the work of the government.”<br />

The people in Lindsay caught<br />

word of this and held a meeting.<br />

For them, the dam was an economic<br />

advantage so to take that<br />

away would have devastated them.<br />

After a militia was formed to greet<br />

them, they resolved the situation<br />

peacefully and agreed due to the<br />

intervention of the government, to<br />

lowered the water by two feet.<br />

Even that didn’t please everyone<br />

in Scugog. In 1882, the editor<br />

of the Observer wrote, “Lower it,<br />

by <strong>all</strong> means lower it. Demolish<br />

the dam. How long are we to have<br />

thousands of acres of land submerged<br />

so that a mill in Lindsay<br />

might be kept running?”<br />

In 1844 the Purdy was replaced<br />

with a newer dam that had<br />

a lock system to better control the<br />

water. It’s the dam that stands in<br />

Lindsay today.<br />

In 1847, the Mississaugas came<br />

back to a different land. Forced to<br />

farm on the rocky shores, they no<br />

longer thrived like they once had.<br />

They stuck it out making a living<br />

off hunting and eventu<strong>all</strong>y by getting<br />

city jobs. Along the way, they<br />

were threatened by extinction due<br />

to residential schools, under funding,<br />

the 60’s scoop and other obstacles<br />

put in the way by the Canadian<br />

government.<br />

In the 1930’s, Scugog became<br />

a tourist spot thanks to it being a<br />

good fishing spot and the beautiful<br />

lakeshore. The towns around<br />

started to thrive from the economic<br />

boast tourists brought.<br />

Port Perry and Scugog Island<br />

are doing better financi<strong>all</strong>y, the<br />

lake itself is facing issues.<br />

Lake Scugog has always been<br />

sh<strong>all</strong>ow but with the years of run<br />

off and the fact that it’s a eutrophic<br />

lake. A eutrophic lake is sh<strong>all</strong>ow<br />

and will eventu<strong>all</strong>y fill in. Its<br />

aquatic life is a hot bed for plants,<br />

fish and algae. Lake Scugog is<br />

currently facing problems with<br />

run-off and sediment which is<br />

quickly filling in the lake.<br />

With the run-off that’s filling<br />

in the lake only brings in fertilizer.<br />

Fertilizer helps plants grow, including<br />

aqua marine plant life like<br />

the plant that growing in abundance<br />

and suffocating the lake.<br />

Most of the island is on septic<br />

tanks and wells since the lake<br />

water is not viable for drinking.<br />

Because of the large amount of<br />

run-off and the septic tanks that<br />

could possible leak, it was better<br />

to go with ground water residents<br />

were already pulling from.<br />

The same ground water that<br />

has kept the Mississauga’s First<br />

Nations on a drinking water advisory<br />

since 2008.<br />

The water itself is currently<br />

safe to drink, it’s the fear that the<br />

water will become contaminated<br />

that it’s been put in place.<br />

“One of the first things we did,<br />

Photograph by Cassidy McMullen<br />

one of the first projects I took on<br />

was a feasibility study,” Versammy<br />

says. “Basic<strong>all</strong>y, we identify where<br />

we are, we characterise the water,<br />

we characterise the quality of the<br />

water, and we come up with a plan<br />

on how to do that.”<br />

The process took six to seven<br />

months to complete as they got<br />

INAC and Health Canada for reviews<br />

and feedback.<br />

“The recommendation, obviously<br />

was to design and construct<br />

a community water treatment<br />

plant and build it and put<br />

a distribution system… to service<br />

the community,” Versammy says.<br />

“It’s easier said than done.”<br />

By the end of the project, the<br />

goal is to not only have a water<br />

treatment plant up and running,<br />

but to hook residents up to the<br />

waste management system that<br />

the Great Blue Heron Casino is<br />

on.<br />

Right now, they’re in the process<br />

of designing the facility and<br />

by the end of January they want to<br />

hand off to INAC for review.<br />

In the spring of 2018, they are<br />

expecting to be able to start construction.<br />

“Our plant, likely, most likely,<br />

will come on probably January,<br />

February of 2019.” Versammy<br />

says.<br />

That will be one of the 81<br />

long-term water advisories on reserves<br />

taken off the list.<br />

Justin Trudeau made a commitment<br />

to eliminate drinking<br />

water advisories in March of 2021<br />

in 2015 and has so far taken 24 off<br />

the list.<br />

That number is expected to be<br />

68 by the end of the year.<br />

Follow us @DCUOIT<strong>Chronicle</strong> and<br />

use #landwherewestand to join the conversation,<br />

ask questions or send us more<br />

information.


Community chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 21<br />

Ajax: A city of history<br />

The land where we stand is the<br />

traditional territory of the Mississaugas<br />

of Scugog Island First Nation.<br />

Uncovering the hidden stories about<br />

the land our community is built on is<br />

what the <strong>Chronicle</strong>'s new feature series,<br />

the Land Where We Stand, is about.<br />

Kayano Waite<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Lincoln Estridge has lived in North<br />

Ajax <strong>all</strong> his life. While attending<br />

Pickering High School, he was recommended<br />

by Ajax’s Community<br />

Recreation Supervisor Ashley<br />

McWhirther to apply for the first<br />

Black Excellence Scholarship.<br />

While applying for the first Black<br />

Excellence Scholarship, which he<br />

won, he found himself questioned<br />

about his varying interests and<br />

what he expected of his future.<br />

While being active in sports as a<br />

youth, he was also dedicated with<br />

his studies.<br />

“I wanted to show that I was academic<strong>all</strong>y<br />

inclined as well,” he said.<br />

Estridge currently goes to the<br />

University of Ontario. He is studying<br />

to be a mechanical engineer,<br />

currently one of the highest in demand<br />

jobs in Canada.<br />

Estridge, whose parents came to<br />

Canada from Jamaica and Saint<br />

Kitts in the early 1980s, is one of<br />

many visible minorities, including<br />

first-generation Canadians and recent<br />

immigrants, who are part of<br />

the changing face of the Durham<br />

community and Canada at large.<br />

According to Stats Canada 2016<br />

census, more than one in five Canadians<br />

are from other countries.<br />

In Ajax, compared to other areas<br />

in Durham Region, there is a rise<br />

in population growth and diversity.<br />

The number of visible minorities<br />

in Ajax, many of them new citizens,<br />

has steadily grown over the years.<br />

As more people emigrate to Canada,<br />

sm<strong>all</strong>er communities will grow<br />

to reflect the face of the country.<br />

This is already happening here<br />

in Durham.<br />

One of the areas in Ajax that reflects<br />

this is Imagination, a housing<br />

community in North Ajax, near<br />

Audley Road.<br />

While Ajax has grown recently<br />

in population, it has always been an<br />

area which has seen newcomers to<br />

Canada come to.<br />

According to Snapshots of Ajax:<br />

A Pictorial History, the first settler<br />

of the area, origin<strong>all</strong>y known<br />

as Brown’s Corner, was Alexander<br />

Dunlop of Scotland in 1835.<br />

Known then as a gathering area<br />

for entertainment, it eventu<strong>all</strong>y became<br />

an enclosed community with<br />

many residents’ descendants still<br />

living in the area.<br />

According to A Town C<strong>all</strong>ed<br />

Ajax, most of these newcomers<br />

were from European countries such<br />

as Ireland, England, and Scotland,<br />

like Dunlop.<br />

Similar to those times, the community<br />

is made up of many families,<br />

with several houses still in<br />

development.<br />

According to Statistics Canada,<br />

the majority of these new residents<br />

in Ajax immigrated from Asian,<br />

South American, and West Indian<br />

countries.According to the Town of<br />

Ajax website, 46 per cent of citizens<br />

identify as a visible minority.<br />

Several of these minorities are<br />

in fact new Canadians, looking<br />

for jobs in their field and learning<br />

about their new community.<br />

One of several places that helps<br />

to find jobs for newcomers in Ajax<br />

is the Welcome Centre Immigration<br />

Services.<br />

The Centre acts as a hub for<br />

those new to Canada since 2013.<br />

The welcome Centre offers free<br />

job workshops, English language<br />

assessments, and a mentorship<br />

program.<br />

Hermia Corbette is the Manager<br />

of the Welcome Centre Immigration<br />

Services in Ajax.<br />

Corbette said the Welcome Centre<br />

work alongside the Local Diversity<br />

& Immigration Partnership<br />

Council (LDIPC) to find what is<br />

most needed.<br />

According to the Durham Immigration<br />

website, in 2005. The<br />

Canadian Ontario Immigration<br />

Agreement was put into place.<br />

This meant the federal and local<br />

government were made to help immigrants<br />

integrate into their new<br />

communities.<br />

The LDICP, composed of business<br />

groups, school boards and<br />

other sectors, work with local employers<br />

to keep workplaces diverse.<br />

“They work to make it a place of<br />

promise for people to want to live<br />

in,” Corbette said.<br />

Robert Gruber, the Community<br />

and Cultural Development Manager<br />

for the town of Ajax,<br />

says that together with the<br />

Welcome Centre, the town hosts<br />

bi-annual newcomers bus tours.<br />

“We take them to community centres,<br />

some of our libraries, the get<br />

to meet the mayor or a member of<br />

council.” he said.<br />

Ajax is dedicated not only to the<br />

immediate integration, but to long<br />

term engagement and acceptance<br />

of newcomers.<br />

The Town of Ajax is currently in<br />

Phase 2 of its Diversity and Community<br />

Engagement Plan, which is<br />

divided into four segments:<br />

The Town as an Employer, Programs<br />

& Services, Community &<br />

Civic Engagement, and Youth Engagement.<br />

Last year, Ajax launched the<br />

#AjaxforAll initiative an educational,<br />

focusing on issues such as<br />

stereotyping and xenophobia.<br />

Similar to Toronto’s #TorontoforAll,<br />

#AjaxforAll will display<br />

posters throughout the town with<br />

eight local “ambassadors”.<br />

Left: An Irish immigrant family. Many families immigrated to Ajax from Ireland in the 1800's.<br />

Right: Robert Gruber, the community and cultural development manager for the town of Ajax.<br />

Lincoln Estridge, north Ajax resident.<br />

Photograph by Kayano Waite<br />

Photograph by Kayano Waite<br />

Estridge was nominated to be a<br />

part of the initiative and says he has<br />

found it to be a great success so far.<br />

“I feel that the diversity in Ajax<br />

is so powerful now,” Estridge said.<br />

“[People] tend to automatic<strong>all</strong>y<br />

put people in boxes, it’s been great<br />

to see people break out of those<br />

boxes.”<br />

According to Global News, the<br />

federal government if planning one<br />

increasing the number of new immigrants<br />

in Canada starting this<br />

year. The number is set to start at<br />

310, 000 this until reaches 340, 000<br />

in 2020.<br />

This will be the largest number<br />

of new citizens <strong>all</strong>owed into the<br />

country since 1913.<br />

Gruber says the increased immigration<br />

is important for the country.<br />

“You need to be able to have<br />

immigrants coming in and have<br />

them be part of the economy,” he<br />

said. “It’s a smart move to re<strong>all</strong>y<br />

have a robust and good immigration<br />

policy to get people to come.”<br />

Estridge also agrees. “I think if<br />

we accept these people and accept<br />

their cultures, I think we could increase<br />

our over<strong>all</strong> knowledge.”<br />

This would benefit Canadians<br />

as a whole. And with new citizens<br />

coming in, this helps to balance<br />

out the aging demographic we<br />

have now.<br />

With the average life expectancy<br />

growing longer, we now have more<br />

senior citizens to take care of and<br />

according to Stats Can, nearly 17<br />

per cent of our citizens are 65 years<br />

or older.<br />

There are also fewer children being<br />

born to bridge the gap. Compared<br />

to generations past when<br />

families would be larger, women<br />

are now averaging 1.6 children<br />

during their lifetime.<br />

The land of Ajax is changing and<br />

the face that represent it are as well.<br />

Estridge has been selected<br />

for the second year for the<br />

#AjaxforAll initiative. And while<br />

plans are still being made, Estridge<br />

says that it will focus on youth<br />

and how they will bring change to<br />

the community.<br />

Follow us @DCUOIT<strong>Chronicle</strong> and<br />

use #landwherewestand to join the conversation,<br />

ask questions or send us more<br />

information.


22 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Community<br />

Photograph courtesy of Oshawa.ca/Photo illustration by Cameron Black-Araujo<br />

Here is how the Civic Auditorium looked in the 1970s (left) and how it looks today, now c<strong>all</strong>ed the Civic Recreation Centre..<br />

Built for the people by the people<br />

The land where we stand is the traditional territory<br />

of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.<br />

Uncovering the hidden stories about the land our<br />

community is built on is what the <strong>Chronicle</strong>'s new<br />

feature series, the Land Where We Stand, is about<br />

Cameron Black-Araujo<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

The city of Oshawa began building the Oshawa<br />

Civic Auditorium in February 1964. It<br />

was completed just ten months later in December<br />

1964. If Hambly Arena, also known<br />

as the Oshawa Arena, had never burned<br />

down in 1953,<br />

The Civic Auditorium would have never have<br />

been built and the Generals would have never<br />

played one game there.<br />

Hambly arena burned down one week before<br />

the hockey season was to begin. Lost in<br />

the fire was the equipment of the Oshawa<br />

Generals as well as other local hockey teams<br />

according to the Oshawa Express.<br />

The Oshawa Daily Times says the total<br />

loss in the fire came out to around $500,000.<br />

With no equipment or arena and not much<br />

more money coming in, other than donations,<br />

the team could no longer continue and players<br />

were forced to find a new team.<br />

Just nine years later the Oshawa Civic<br />

Auditorium was resurrected and the Generals<br />

returned to Oshawa.<br />

But the Auditorium and complex turned<br />

out to be so much more than the community<br />

could have ever asked for. “Built for the<br />

people, by the people,” was the slogan that<br />

went along with the facility after it was built<br />

because it was paid for by volunteer fundraising,<br />

including going door-to-door as well<br />

payroll deductions from General Motors employees.<br />

The community raised $1.25 million towards<br />

the building according to The Civic.<br />

While the arena was the main attraction,<br />

the facility also offered swimming, a games<br />

room, a fitness centre, a footb<strong>all</strong> field and<br />

could host circuses, dinners or shows.<br />

The Generals were very well what brought<br />

the biggest crowd to the Oshawa Civic Auditorium.<br />

Jill Passmore, who grew up across the<br />

street from The Civic, would go to games with<br />

her family like so many others in Oshawa.<br />

Memories of these games go well beyond<br />

the players just passing a puck around the ice.<br />

“There was always the 50/50 draw at the<br />

games.<br />

One time my Dad won and I remember<br />

him taking home a brown lunch bag of<br />

change,” says Passmore.<br />

Passmore also remembers going for public<br />

skates on the ice surface in the auditorium<br />

but her favourite times on the ice were for the<br />

“Skate with the Generals.”<br />

While Passmore grew up just across the<br />

street from the building, the mayor of Oshawa,<br />

John Henry, says he’s been around it <strong>all</strong><br />

his life as well.<br />

“When I was a kid at The Civic, I don’t<br />

think I was older than ten when I went to<br />

watch the Buffalo Sabres play the California<br />

Golden Seals in an exhibition game at The<br />

Civic,” explains mayor Henry.<br />

While the Generals were the main hockey<br />

team in town, the NHL’s California Golden<br />

Wishing my kids end up having memories of<br />

a place like this to look back on.<br />

Seals took advantage of the Oshawa Civic<br />

Auditorium in the 70s for training camps<br />

and as the mayor had the privilege to watch,<br />

preseason NHL hockey as well.<br />

The connection between the Oshawa Civic<br />

Auditorium and the Oshawa Generals peaked<br />

in the 1990’s as the Gens made it to the finals<br />

three times, brought home the Memorial Cup<br />

in 1990 and only had one losing season.<br />

They closed out their time at the Auditorium<br />

with only three winning seasons in the<br />

final seven and only a dismal 33 wins (136<br />

games played) in their final two seasons in<br />

the building.<br />

While Passmore has attended many Generals<br />

games, this one was a little different for<br />

her. It’s the 1993 season and while Passmore<br />

has attended many games before, none without<br />

her parents.<br />

The puck drop is coming up at 7:30 at the<br />

Civic Auditorium as the Generals host the<br />

Peterborough Petes.<br />

Passmore and her friends scramble to their<br />

seats in “their” section, where they typic<strong>all</strong>y<br />

sit, and are on the lookout for a friend’s cousin<br />

playing with the Petes.<br />

While the girls giggle and enjoy their first<br />

night out at The Civic alone, the furthest<br />

thing from her mind was what the facility<br />

might look when she has kids.<br />

She may not have the ability to bring her<br />

kids to Generals games at the Civic Auditorium<br />

but Passmore is proud to bring her kids<br />

to such a beautiful, community driven facility<br />

that she was so blessed to grow up with in her<br />

very own backyard.<br />

“I could go on forever, but I’ll finish by<br />

wishing that my kids end up having memories<br />

of a place like this to look back on as<br />

I do when I think about The Civic,” says<br />

Passmore.<br />

Whether it’s 1990 or 2018, or whether it’s<br />

c<strong>all</strong>ed the Civic Recreation Centre, The<br />

Civic is still serving its purpose over 60 years<br />

later.<br />

Follow us @DCUOIT<strong>Chronicle</strong> and use<br />

#landwherewestand to join the conversation, ask<br />

questions or send us more information.


Tiago de Oliveira<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 23<br />

Entertainment<br />

Oshawa<br />

gets its own<br />

Music Week<br />

A celebration of Oshawa’s music<br />

culture is on the way as the Music<br />

Business Management program of<br />

Durham College is preparing for<br />

Oshawa Music Week, a week-long<br />

music festival debuting April 5 and<br />

running until April 12.<br />

The events will take place over<br />

a variety of venues including The<br />

Moustache Club, and both Durham<br />

College and UOIT’s Oshawa<br />

campus.<br />

“Oshawa has a rich music culture,”<br />

said MBM program professor<br />

Tony Sutherland. “Hence our<br />

new brand: Oshawa Music Week,<br />

with the focus on Oshawa and its<br />

music scene.”<br />

Oshawa Music Week has been<br />

a staple in the community in one<br />

form or another, most recently<br />

known as Oshawa’s Reel Music<br />

Festival, for the past 18 years.<br />

Through the years it has been run<br />

and organized by the MBM program.<br />

This year the MBM program<br />

made the choice to change<br />

the name and rebrand itself.<br />

“It’s definitely a good move on<br />

our part,” said Jennifer Archibald,<br />

a second year MBM student and<br />

director of marketing and advertising<br />

for Oshawa Music Week.<br />

“We chose to go with Oshawa<br />

Music Week in order to re<strong>all</strong>y represent<br />

the community.”<br />

Archibald said it used to be<br />

c<strong>all</strong>ed the Reel Music Festival because<br />

the event had a film component.<br />

She said the new brand more<br />

properly represents the community,<br />

better reflecting the goal of<br />

the event as it showcases local<br />

talent.<br />

New to this year’s music festival<br />

is the OMW Award Show. The<br />

award show covers five categories<br />

to be given to local artists, industry<br />

personnel, and businesses in the<br />

region. While the nomination period<br />

is now over, the voting process<br />

started March 9 and the public still<br />

has time to vote for their favourite<br />

local artists.<br />

Archibald said the event provides<br />

a unique opportunity for local<br />

musicians to attend and benefit<br />

from the show, as there will be industry<br />

professionals at the panels<br />

and conferences who will be able<br />

to provide advice, criticism, and<br />

insight.<br />

“If you’re a musician, if you’re<br />

an artist of any kind, you can<br />

come and learn about opportunities<br />

that are available to you in<br />

the community,” said Archibald.<br />

“For example, skill development or<br />

funding, or they can just come by<br />

and watch the show.”<br />

Oshawa Music Week’s first<br />

event, World Music Festival, will<br />

run Thursday, April 5 on Durham<br />

College’s Oshawa campus.<br />

Performers are yet to be announced<br />

but World Music Festival<br />

is free for the public to attend, Archibald<br />

said.<br />

Love, Simon familiar story, but bucking movie trend<br />

Kayano<br />

Waite<br />

Movies with queer stories tend to<br />

be released in a limited number<br />

of theatres. Many also tend to be<br />

pitched as strong Oscar contenders<br />

(Carol, Moonlight, C<strong>all</strong> Me by<br />

Your Name). The idea that stories<br />

with LGBT characters will attract<br />

only niche audiences prevents<br />

many major studios from releasing<br />

them.<br />

Love, Simon is one of a few<br />

major studio releases to buck this<br />

trend.<br />

Adapted from the 2015 youth<br />

novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens<br />

Agenda, the movie gives queer<br />

youth a story they’ve probably already<br />

seen, but with them as the<br />

focus. Not as the sidekick.<br />

Simon Spier (played by Nick<br />

Robinson) describes himself as the<br />

average teenager. With a nuclear<br />

family living in the suburbs and<br />

lifelong friends, nothing about<br />

Simon separates him much from<br />

others – except that he’s gay.<br />

Simon finds out about Blue, an<br />

anonymous closeted gay student at<br />

his school through social media.<br />

Simon reaches out to Blue to connect<br />

with one of the few other gay<br />

students at his school.<br />

Simon’s interactions with Blue<br />

lead him to be on high alert at<br />

school, using any clue from their<br />

conversations to figure out who he<br />

is.<br />

Simon’s interaction with Blue<br />

helps him to express his frustrations<br />

with being closeted.<br />

“Why is it that gay people are<br />

the only ones that have to come<br />

out?” Simon asks Blue one night.<br />

While Blue admits he’s not<br />

ready to come out, Simon pictures<br />

himself free to be out after his life<br />

in high school.<br />

In his dream scenario, he lives<br />

in New York with a Pride-coloured<br />

dorm room doing stylized choreography<br />

to Whitney Houston.<br />

“Okay fine, maybe not this<br />

gay,” Simon eventu<strong>all</strong>y says before<br />

walking off-screen.<br />

Simon is eventu<strong>all</strong>y found out<br />

Source from Fox 2000 Pictures<br />

Simon Spier, played by Nick Robinson, where high school students are staring curiously from<br />

behind him.<br />

by his classmate Martin (played by<br />

Logan Miller). Martin blackmails<br />

Simon into setting him up with<br />

Simon’s friend Abby (played by Alexandra<br />

Shipp). This leads Simon<br />

to gaslight his friends to appease<br />

his classmate.<br />

Despite knowing his two friends<br />

Abby and Nick (played by Jorge<br />

Lendeborg Jr.) have feelings for<br />

each other, he misleads both of<br />

them to appease Martin.<br />

Photograph by Tiago de Oliveira<br />

Jennifer Archibald, a student in Durham College's Music Business Management program and<br />

director of marketing and advertising for Oshawa Music Week.<br />

Like many movies based on<br />

hiding a major secret, Simon is<br />

eventu<strong>all</strong>y outed and abandoned<br />

by the third act.<br />

Not because of who he is, but<br />

because of his actions.The film is<br />

ultimately nothing if not a crowd<br />

pleaser, and Simon’s parents<br />

(played by Jennifer Garner and<br />

Josh Duhamel) show that.<br />

With many stories about LG-<br />

BTQ teens facing rejection from<br />

their family and friends, Simon’s<br />

parents are simply surprised, but<br />

not bitter. They seem to be more<br />

upset that he wouldn’t reach out to<br />

them as opposed to him being gay.<br />

“When you were younger you<br />

were so carefree,” Simon’s mom<br />

says. “But for the past few years, it<br />

seems you closed in on yourself.”<br />

“You deserve everything you<br />

want,” she says, a sentiment his father<br />

later shares in a similar scene<br />

soon after.<br />

Love, Simon’s tagline is “everyone<br />

deserves a great love story.”<br />

This is not quite that. '<br />

Aside from its queer narrative,<br />

it’s just like any other teen dramedy<br />

in structure and appeal, past<br />

and present. But that may be the<br />

point; if the basic queer love story<br />

can be successful, maybe more<br />

complex stories will be greenlit by<br />

Hollywood in the future. Love, Simon<br />

was released across Canada<br />

on March 16, 2018.


24 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Entertainment<br />

Diving into the Dragons' Den<br />

Conner McTague<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

Canadians with entrepreneurial aspirations<br />

may have a goal of landing a deal with the<br />

dragons from CBC's Dragons’ Den to kickstart<br />

their business ideas.<br />

Durham Region residents had their opportunity<br />

to audition for the show and pitch<br />

their products when producers of the program<br />

came to Durham College Feb. <strong>28</strong>.<br />

Entering its 13th season in late September,<br />

the show and the Dragons, continue to<br />

look for the next big Canadian product and<br />

entrepreneur to hit the market.<br />

Around 40 people showed up with their<br />

products and pitched them to the producers.<br />

Stephanie Quilligan, one of the producers<br />

of the show, says "the number one thing<br />

we're looking for is passion. If you're not passionate<br />

about your business then why would<br />

a dragon or anybody be interested in investing?"<br />

She says producers want to see new and<br />

innovative products as well, while also keeping<br />

in mind it's a show for entertainment, so<br />

the entrepreneur needs to have character<br />

and come across well on television.<br />

The audition process moves quickly, as<br />

Quilligan says they travel to more than 30<br />

Canadian cities in six weeks to find entrepreneurs<br />

to pitch their ideas to the dragons.<br />

There are about four participants per episode,<br />

in past seasons there have been around<br />

20 episodes per, so there are around 80 participants<br />

per season.<br />

Participants are reached by phone or<br />

email if they make the final cut.<br />

Jeremy Hannan, of Whitby, was one of<br />

the many entrepreneurs who showed up to<br />

pitch a product.<br />

His product is the Cobra mask, a full<br />

face snorkeling mask which he says provides<br />

Photograph by Conner McTague<br />

Jeremy Hannan, a Whitby entrepreneur who auditioned for his snorkeling gear to be pitched to the CBC reality show<br />

Dragons' Den.<br />

more comfort than normal snorkeling gear.<br />

All of which he designs himself.<br />

He retails the masks for about $75 and<br />

they come in 13 different colours.<br />

He has owned his business for about three<br />

years and says it has become the biggest selling<br />

snorkeling mask in Canada, though he<br />

says he does face competition from European<br />

and American companies. He says<br />

his product had around $150,000 in sales in<br />

2017, with the expectation of doubling it this<br />

year.<br />

He says he wants a dragon deal to "increase<br />

production and quality of the masks",<br />

as he can't currently mass produce the item,<br />

leaving him to retail them in sm<strong>all</strong>er stores.<br />

Hannan says the audition was "more formal<br />

and professional than I expected it to be.<br />

It felt like I was pitching in front of the real<br />

dragons." He also says even if he doesn't get<br />

a deal with the dragons "it's still great exposure<br />

for the product to make it on TV."<br />

Although, if he does earn a spot on the<br />

show at the studio in Toronto and lands a<br />

deal with a Dragon he hopes it's Arlene<br />

Dickinson because "she has the business<br />

sense and the connections."<br />

The Shape of Water deserving of Best Picture<br />

Alex<br />

Clelland<br />

The Shape of Water, directed by<br />

Guillermo del Toro, is a strange<br />

monster-fantasy film that won<br />

four awards at the Oscars, including<br />

Best Picture and Best Director.<br />

The film is another one of del<br />

Toro’s monster movie masterpieces,<br />

following the tale of a young<br />

woman who f<strong>all</strong>s in love with an<br />

amphibious fish-man. The Shape<br />

of Water is arguably one of the<br />

best feature films of 2017.<br />

Elisa Esposito (S<strong>all</strong>y Hawkins)<br />

is a young woman in Baltimore<br />

during the Cold War, who lives her<br />

entire life as a mute and works as<br />

a janitor in a government laboratory.<br />

One day on the job, a mysterious<br />

water tank is delivered, harbouring<br />

a creature found in South<br />

America. Elisa discovers the tank<br />

contains a large amphibious creature<br />

bearing close resemblance to<br />

man. She and the fish-man f<strong>all</strong> in<br />

love, she saves him from experimental<br />

torture, and the two defy<br />

the odds of romance by running<br />

away together.<br />

What makes The Shape of<br />

Water so special is the genre itself.<br />

Fantasy films very rarely make it<br />

into the Best Picture category, let<br />

alone win the coveted prize of the<br />

year.<br />

The only other true fantasy<br />

film to win Best Picture was The<br />

Lord of the Rings: The Return of<br />

the King in 2003. Instead, these<br />

films typic<strong>all</strong>y f<strong>all</strong> under Best Production<br />

Design, or Best Costume<br />

Design for their whimsical artistic<br />

vibe and extraordinary makeup<br />

work. However, The Shape of Water<br />

broke through the glass ceiling<br />

as a monster fantasy film, picking<br />

up four of the biggest awards of<br />

the night.<br />

The character of Elisa feels<br />

incomplete throughout the film<br />

because of her disability, but after<br />

f<strong>all</strong>ing in love with the amphibious<br />

fish-man, she finds herself feeling<br />

whole once again because neither<br />

of them can speak. Many people<br />

who watched the movie only saw<br />

as far as the first layer of the film;<br />

a girl f<strong>all</strong>s in love with a fish-man<br />

and a weird romantic and sexual<br />

relationship ensues.<br />

Copyright by TSG Entertainment<br />

Octavia Spencer (left) as Zelda Delilah Fuller, the interpreter of the mute Elisa Esposito played<br />

by S<strong>all</strong>y Hawkins (right) in The Shape of Water.<br />

The Shape of Water is so much<br />

more than that.<br />

The film touches on The American<br />

Dream during the 1960’s<br />

Cold War, with the American and<br />

Russian governments both trying<br />

to best each other with advanced<br />

research.<br />

It’s also one of few films to simultaneously<br />

explore female sexuality,<br />

disabilities, and depict a homosexual<br />

man in the unaccepting<br />

time of 1960. To top it <strong>all</strong> off, del<br />

Toro is a man of colour who took<br />

home the prize of Best Director<br />

and Best Picture <strong>all</strong> in one night.<br />

The film keeps up a beautiful<br />

balance between a murky, green<br />

film-noir vibe and that of a gaudy,<br />

cheesy 1950’s musical. This<br />

awarded the film with Best Production<br />

Design.<br />

The Shape of Water is a beautifully<br />

artistic film and subtly explores<br />

many deep subthemes of<br />

human nature, including race and<br />

morality.<br />

Appearing as a strange monster<br />

romance film on the surface,<br />

it has many deep and complicated<br />

themes underneath.<br />

This makes The Shape of Water<br />

the best choice for Best Picture<br />

at the 90th Academy Awards, and<br />

it deservingly won.<br />

Del Toro’s work did not go unnoticed<br />

this year, and The Shape<br />

of Water is the one of the best<br />

films of 2017.


chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 25


26 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca<br />

Sports<br />

Durham enjoys sports success<br />

Lords<br />

win three<br />

provincial<br />

titles in<br />

2017-18<br />

season<br />

Shanelle Somers,<br />

Tracy Wright and<br />

Cameron Black-Araujo<br />

The <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />

It was a year of success on <strong>all</strong> fields<br />

of play for Durham College’s varsity<br />

sports teams.<br />

“We had a tremendous year. It<br />

was an amazing year,” says Ken<br />

Babcock, Durham College athletic<br />

director.<br />

The DC Lords athletic program<br />

is wrapping up a school year which<br />

has seen its teams win three provincial<br />

championships and leave their<br />

mark at the national level.<br />

Babcock says <strong>all</strong> of the teams at<br />

the college made their respective<br />

playoffs which he says is an exceptional<br />

level of success.<br />

The men’s soccer team made history,<br />

winning its first Ontario Colleges<br />

Athletic Association (OCAA)<br />

gold in 20 years, beating Algonquin<br />

2-1.<br />

Kevin Thibodeau scored the<br />

winning goal in the 90th minute<br />

of the game.<br />

Scott Dennis, DC sports information<br />

and marketing coordinator,<br />

says “they went into the playoffs<br />

on a hot streak and then rolled<br />

through the OCAA championships<br />

and then qualified for nationals.”<br />

At the Canadian men’s national<br />

championships in Nanaimo, B.C.<br />

the Lords made progress finishing<br />

fifth in the competition, their best<br />

finish since 1999.<br />

The men’s soccer team ended<br />

its season with an over<strong>all</strong> record<br />

of 12-5-1.<br />

The women’s softb<strong>all</strong> team had<br />

a similar success story after taking<br />

gold at the OCAA championships.<br />

This is their third straight<br />

OCAA title and their 19th since<br />

the OCAA softb<strong>all</strong> championships<br />

started in 1981.<br />

A standout player on the women’s<br />

softb<strong>all</strong> team was Emily Glendinning.<br />

Early in the women’s softb<strong>all</strong><br />

season she threw a perfect game.<br />

Dennis says she was one of the top<br />

rookies in the league and is a twosport<br />

athlete, also playing basketb<strong>all</strong><br />

at Durham.<br />

Over<strong>all</strong> the women’s softb<strong>all</strong><br />

team ended the season 20-8.<br />

The men’s golf team continued<br />

its tradition at the OCAA championships<br />

making it to the podium.<br />

“Our men’s golf team is made<br />

The Durham Lords men's soccer team won gold at the Provincials this season.<br />

up of young team members that<br />

represented Durham College at<br />

the national level re<strong>all</strong>y well,” says<br />

Babcock.<br />

Durham College also proudly<br />

hosted the Canadian championships<br />

at the Royal Ashburn Golf<br />

Club in Whitby, Ont. where then<br />

men’s team placed sixth.<br />

“It’s an exceptional year for athletics<br />

this year,” says Babcock.<br />

Meantime, the women’s indoor<br />

soccer team have qualified for the<br />

provincial championships. Dennis<br />

says “women’s soccer continues to<br />

make strides forward.”<br />

Advancing to the provincial<br />

championships with one win, one<br />

loss, and one tied game, the DC<br />

Lords hope to capture gold.<br />

They will be traveling to Redeemer<br />

University to compete in<br />

the OCAA championship March<br />

22-24.<br />

The men’s and women’s basketb<strong>all</strong><br />

teams successfully made it to<br />

compete on the provincial level but<br />

in the end did not win a medal. But,<br />

the team is made up of strong players<br />

and some team members from<br />

both men’s and women’s teams<br />

were named OCAA championship<br />

<strong>all</strong>-stars.<br />

Brandon H<strong>all</strong>iburton and Funsho<br />

Dimeji were OCAA’s first team<br />

player <strong>all</strong>-stars for the second year<br />

in a row.<br />

Maddie Dender and Dekota<br />

Kirby were OCAA’s second team<br />

player <strong>all</strong>-stars and rookie Emily<br />

Glendinning now has a spot on the<br />

OCAA <strong>all</strong>-rookie team.<br />

Over<strong>all</strong> the men’s basketb<strong>all</strong><br />

team finished the season with 15-6<br />

and the women’s basketb<strong>all</strong> team<br />

finished 10-10.<br />

The men’s and women’s volleyb<strong>all</strong><br />

teams also had a strong season<br />

and competed at the provincial<br />

competition.<br />

Unfortunately they did not make<br />

it to the podium but the women’s<br />

volleyb<strong>all</strong> team had a remarkable<br />

season with one of the youngest<br />

lineups in the OCAA.<br />

The men’s volleyb<strong>all</strong> team had<br />

many standout players this season.<br />

For example, in the Lords last game<br />

of the season against the Niagara<br />

Knights, Erik Janssen, was the<br />

top scorer with eight kills and one<br />

block.<br />

Over<strong>all</strong> the women’s volleyb<strong>all</strong><br />

team ended the season 12-7. The<br />

men’s volleyb<strong>all</strong> team ended the<br />

season 9-10.<br />

Photograph courtesy of DC Athletics<br />

Photograph courtesy of DC Athletics<br />

The women's softb<strong>all</strong> team took gold at the OCAA championships, its third straight.<br />

The DC Lords hope to continue<br />

building strong teams for the 2018-<br />

19 athletic season.<br />

The recruiting process is currently<br />

in its peak. The Lords will<br />

receive confirmations and signed<br />

scholarship letters of intent from<br />

prospective athletes by June 1.<br />

“We’ve had significant success<br />

in <strong>all</strong> of our programs and<br />

we are quite proud of that,” says<br />

Babcock.


chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 20 - 26, 2018 The <strong>Chronicle</strong> 27


<strong>28</strong> The <strong>Chronicle</strong> March 20 - 26, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca

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